POSTCARD

I am writing a postcard to L.;
I have to catch the train in an hour, and the postcard is red.

While I write, in my mind: a Sunday morning,
September. A room with a red wall.
At the balcony: someone has forgotten a glass of white wine,
half-empty. The rain is falling in it, stirring tiny waves at its crystal edges.
It is the first rain to break the spell of a heavy-footed summer; and there have been
friends and laughter and music the night before. I have turned 20 years old.

L. and I sit next to the window, entranced with that glass. The table behind us is still
full of cake and cutlery, and more glasses.  The city is quiet; we will clean later.
We talk, but I cannot hear the words; time has molded them mute.

It is a foreign country, indeed, the past.
I put her address on the envelope. She’s in Sofia, but the post code is new.

On my way to the station, I will ponder once again
how the double names of streets and neighborhoods in Brussels
allow one to feel as if present at two places at the same time.

L. once drew a painting of a poppy field. Maybe that’s why I am
sending her a red postcard.

(14th December 2018)