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Where else am I walking even now, looking for me--W.S. Merwin
This London is lost before it’s even begun, the layers of history which are, he’s discovered, so fluid as to be negligible; it’s not the map he knows but he’s almost mapped it, the currents he can navigate, riverine, watch people try to hold their secrets. They can’t. They never could. The Thames, dark as soot, clear as bells, conductor; the only highway.
The question of whether he’s alive. The question of why he’s alone, always alone in a city not at all gone, citizened with people so fixed in their own veins, so lonely they can’t see him, but he can see them, always. Observe: the man on the steps with the iris glowing in a pot (for the estranged wife), the woman in the red kitten heels (breakup), the man with the dropped-foot limp (not psychosomatic). No-one’s looking for him, not the British government, not friends he’s never had. He never catches sight of himself but he knows (wrapped throat, big-shouldered coat, obvious): the only one in the world.
Barts is a vortex where he can see a storm from the roof and the crows gather, where he’s met gravity, grinning, come back up again. Old acquaintances move in the morgue; if he knew their names; if he knew their names, he might need them.
*
The man in the cloud-colored jumper on the bench in Regent’s (injured, warrior, not long for any of these worlds)sits stroking his thumb, then stops, fingers the hands on a watch, lifts his walking stick, sees him, sees him, says, oh, you too. Says, I know how to get home, but you can’t do it alone.
Holds out his phone says, here, use mine. Hefts his gun, says, here, use mine.
*
This London is a rush of light when wrist to wrist, as if on a bullet, they come back.