I would collect you – provisional

as china, gingerly offering

my arm for 5 minutes between Star

Mews and Stone Court, minding

you say: two people crossing on

a flight of stairs is bad luck – you

can feel the ghosts trying

to reach out through the sudden

confusion of space – who is

occupying, who is bequeathing—

like a twenty-pound note in a card

you would send as an unbirthday

present. Sometimes you’d invite me

in. Couldn’t enter otherwise – like

has-been vampires – and even then you’d

ferry me out as soon as humanly

possible. I did get to see your dolls

and the century-dust thick photos

—indescribably specific—

crammed into a small flat in a tiny

corner of a tiny country, indivisible

as an atom, split from incredible

love. You invite me in.
This time I stay.