Pour A Little Salt, We Were Never Here

The white square of my window frames
a page of blue sky resting on a ledge
of red-brick wall. The two colours,
orange and blue, are so bright -
like two big blocks of pastel resting
next to each other in the artist’s box.
Though the blue is haunted
by a few wisps of white,
and the orange boasts flecks of brown;
darker bricks like coffee-bean sun spots.

October sunlight stumbles into the room as I rise,
shrugging off the curious telepathy of dreams.
Dandelion prints chase their yellow tails across the walls;
it is as if you were never here.
You are the house’s very own myth.
The walls still whisper of the last time
you shut the door, but no ghost of you returned.
At night I conjure you, but can sleep knowing
the soft pad of footsteps trail across
the carpets of my mind, not outside my door.

The city is the same as it ever was;
the before and after have
a bright symmetry.
The cathedral is still a block of gold,
pierced by one black-hole window.
The arches of the viaduct retain
their pretty curves, and the Wear;
the Wear keeps up its tinkling sprint
over these northern stones, safe in the knowledge
that it will go on and on and on.