I.
It must be her son—
the saucer between them disappearing
and the urge to ask— no, she picks up
the napkin instead, dabs at some crumbs
and his newspaper wrinkles, as his eyes,
obstinate, avoid hers. It must be her son,
all else is— again, the urge to ask, and
what is this?
his sudden anger and
Oh, Christ, would you leave it alone?
and silence before it disappears again,
comes back alien – looks like tea, half-drunk –
she can’t remember now what she’s just asked
or whether she has, decides against asking again,
relapses back to the napkin, and the—
and she decides against it, but the urge
what is this?
he takes it away now, a stifled shout
or vague threat, or so seeming,
and it has disappeared again; and now
Come on, we’re going
and though he’s sat there for a quarter hour
she’s only just arrived— arriving every few seconds
no, I don’t want that
Come on, we’re going
no, I don’t want that
and all is alien again, a place departing
before she even has time to— and has she asked, or?—
no, I don’t want that
II.
the woman next to me must be in her eighties,
and every few seconds she combs with her napkin
along the table’s corner, forgetting she’s done it just seconds before—
the man across from her must be her son;
the Times between his fingers, telling of the End of Days
in all but name— by his face you can see he’s not convinced
and neither am I; although it’s never true until it suddenly is, isn’t it,
every Savonarola, John of Patmos, Jim Jones, the annals of street prophets,
all of them only ever wrong in retrospect, but there’s a suspension of laughter,
each time the thought comes up: the world, the only harbour of life
this side of the galaxy, now so far in debt by its subsidies of daily miracles,
may finally go bankrupt for good. And there’s always a day coming,
and this man knows it, too, sometimes, once he’s loosened his collar,
belt, watch, slips into the sheets, loosens too that commerce of daily thought,
allows finally the thought to sit there on the edge of consciousness: the human race
gone with “the push of a button” – but the ridiculousness of it, the tiredness,
push it back again, as he rolls over to set the morning alarm,
counting the minutes until yet another impact: to rise again and taste of Life
only to end up midday in a café like this one,
amnesiac mother asking every few seconds: what is this ?
making even light reading nearly impossible.
Her world is ending daily around her, moments annihilating themselves,
instituting their new puppet regimes – the cup of tea in front of her,
there once, and then emptied, and then gone – and there is no talk of
“stability in the region” for her, not from her son, anyway,
he withdrew his forces long ago— only drags her out here these days
because she needs to eat, and then back home, where she can sit and watch
as the walls and couches regress and resurrect and wonder
when she’ll eat the meal she just ate, go on her walk she’s
just come back from. Until even the wonder is replaced.
III.
The younger ones have brought their laptops
and are not concerned with apocalypse –
there is a better world for them that does not repeat itself
and inherits no circular history, just on the other side
of the next revolution, when revolution itself ends;
they’ve all come here to get some work done –
and there remains the feeling, unhaunted by the Wraith
of their own future selves found in that trembling woman
in the chair across the room, that this was not
how it was meant to go on: that the cycle would break,
the tail of Ouroboros, the self-eating snake,
would be wrenched eventually from its mouth,
that the world would move, somehow, forward.
The walls that surround them remain walls,
though they warp every moment around the woman,
though if they’re lucky one day the walls
will do the same around them at 85. They don’t think
of this, as they drink the juice of a plant harvested
by slave labour, from a people whose bloodlines
for generations were that of slaves. One day,
these people assure themselves, there will be no slaves.
Slaves will be as free as them, and will one day
have the freedom to stop by, like them, to admire
the ambience and the smell of espresso beans
while they finish some emails to a few clients,
polish a few write-ups of cash flows, finish
the last paragraph of the book they’d bought
and never had the time to read.
And the woman, if she could, would look in horror
at the contours of their better world,
that does not daily turn in on itself,
that is not every moment at the edge of apocalypse,
that simply remains.
