Foreigner

Third of September, and the cold is already awake. Although the car windows have started to sweat and you can see your breath, I walk to work in shorts and a t-shirt. I'm not clinging on to summer. I just won't get cold. The people at the bus-stop stare like I'm crazy as I walk past. If they're not smoking, they gaze into their phones. I hear some reaching despair because the bus is over a minute late, and buses are always on time in Germany. In a place like this, you can only be crazy. I thank god for the unreliable countries, and that I've known them.


The guy who looks in a haze of cordial bewilderment: eyes wide — bald at the front, white eyes mirroring his teeth, signs me out of the concrete; the industry growing around the weeds.


I see lovers in the town with some kind of formal love. Contained and conscious. Careful thinkers. I wonder what sounds they consume and hold in their bellies. The children? The river? Does he imagine how she hears the river? There must be something I don't understand — some existential commitments. Dead and plenty. I imagine how she hears the river in each season: four different rivers; four new rivers, and she'd never have walked by his side. Not like this. Not so wasted, so native.