by Daniel Simko
after a photograph almost taken in Berlin
Wet slate roofs. Pigeons. A light.
A leaf on the sidewalk.
The shadows slipping between cobblestones.
It is already dusk
when you arrive
from Paris,
smoke rising from the Diesel
as you step out
with your black hair untied.
I am almost always
turning into that smoke,
into the pigeons landing
on the glass roof.
Or I wake up
and you come
with a shawl
black with stars.
Paris, 1980