“It was during the discretionary month
after the smoking ban in Berlin,
in East Kreuzberg, in the Ankerlause,
in the leatherette booth: the ashtray
knitted a scarf. There was enough room
for a sparrow to perch in the waiter’s earlobe.
A sparrow, its ears burning, flew
in through the back door, bounced
on the windows, and then left.
I wrote in my notepad: A heart cut loose /
of its meat / batting itself cold.
‘Swallows sleep on the wing, like Oprah powernapping.
They dream of falling,’ said the waiter,
except the waiter didn’t even speak English.”
I wished Max would stop telling me about Berlin.
He thinks narrative is for squares.
He quotes his own poetry
as though he is on the GCSE syllabus.
I met Max in London in a place
I’d rather not name-drop
and his hair was the hair I’d had
as a twelve-year-old, but somehow
so right and he told me this story
about Berlin as a way to illustrate
how much of a disappointment
London's pigeons are, aesthetically, and I remembered
the whole episode when Susan started
to tell me about her long-awaited debut.
