Sun-dried tomato sandwich went stale
On a table in an empty cafe in Duarte, where I waited for
My mother’s treatment to end in the nearby hospital,
While tomato-red sunset coloured the nearby mountains.

I impatiently checked for messages from Oxford.
As a week earlier I sent a post-card with a short cue
Which I bought in gallery, where I drank a latte,
Brewed by a brunette that reminded me of you.

The colour, the schema, midnight in Pasadena,
Ions of impressionist paintings in Norton Simon,
Exposing our souls, that met a year ago at
Christmas fair, not knowing we could ever fall in love.

Driving back from Duarte along American landscapes,
Presaging Thomas Cole's exhibition in National Gallery,
That would see us years later by the “Course of Empire”,
Forgetting the modern day empires desolating each other.

In Pasadena that evening when mum went to sleep,
I went to our neighbour’s, who smoked in his garden.
He fixed me a drink, switched on TV and we watched the newsreel,
That repeated at least a dozen of times in an hour.

I stared at the screen, sipped whisky,
Yet I thought about you and the post-card.
You haven’t responded, but I was not anxious
As back then we were far, yet always together.

“Why do we feel alone now?” -
You asked years later in London and
I stared in the dark starless night.

01/11/2022