As if someone said, go, then you went,
and this was what you were given: a night
at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, a long evening
with the next-to-last of Beethoven’s quartets.
You tried to listen as if listening
were all. But in that interval between movements,
where Beethoven intended only silence
to accompany the intense and fussy preparations
for the unfinished music that lay ahead,
shouts and screams entered from across the street
in front of the South African embassy, whitely
chaste like an untouched wedding cake.

Think of the world as a week alone in a strange city.
But think of it especially as this one night
when after the concert, nearby at Trafalgar Square,
two women stood together, oblivious
of you, and said their good-byes.
The one getting on the bus was in tears.
The other, older, more sure of herself and stronger,
said, pray for me. Then, in case
it wasn’t absolutely clear, said again, demanding it
calmly, pray for me. The other had no choice
in the matter. Then,
just as you were sure it was over,
she leaned out the window to her friend, I
love you, she said, and it was so unbearably true
the three of you each stood a moment, stunned, not thinking
of what had to happen next: that the bus must take her away.
The demonstration was fading, hundreds of black balloons
had been released in the name of a freedom
that exists somewhere: if not in this world,
then surely someplace nearby.

When the 24 arrived, you sat upstairs,
a moon on your left as you moved up Charing Cross
and took the long way back, Camden Town,
Highgate, and all the rest. By the end of the route,
you were famished. At the Curry Paradise
they put you by the window, but you’d had enough
of the world for one day. It was time for a postcard
to someone familiar, someone from your other country.
Think of the world as a week alone, you began to write.
On the reverse was Keats’ House.
You could have walked there after dinner
if you’d wished, could even have stood alone
in the darkness under his favorite tree, the one
he wrote of more than once. But you didn’t 
want to push your luck too far.
Think of how you just happened to appear
this week and no other, at the exact moment two friends
said their good-byes overheard by you
who had nothing more important to do, not then, not ever,
than to stand like that in the middle of such parting.

Think of the world as a strange city,
only partly yours. Think of it as silence that should have
let you rest between movements, but didn’t. Think
of it as black balloons released into a blacker sky,
as a moment under a famous tree
that almost happened, or as the plush paradise
of a dark booth: spiced and unfamiliar food. You were so hungry,
and this is the meal you wanted, the one you needed to eat.