If it comes to that, I suppose I could see taking a train to the limit of a night’s ride, uncomfortable, sitting up all hours, with the rocking of the carriage an undersong that would never become a nocturne, the unmoving air, whiffs of stale luggage and stubbed-out cigarettes—how sad the telephone wires stretching away absentmindedly, chair a hard green, a neighbor’s open-mouthed breathing, the relic of a newspaper splayed on the floor, shoes off, there a lake suddenly and then gone, now some trees;
if it comes to that, I suppose I could dim the overhead and close my eyes, returning to the ruined city that I love, flitting over parapets and rooftops, then alighting to gaze through a window—a man at his desk, fist on a sheaf of paper: paperweight of blood and bone, rapture, grief.