Meeting Me There Later

you were always meeting me there later:

by the time you arrived at Grand Centraal

there were too many Dutch angles – bicycles

cars, trams – and buildings with hooks. The canal

was already oil – a trick of densities –

in the lamp-light: Vermeer o’ milk. Van Gogh

o’ a thousand candles. Frank. I’ll meet you

wherever light’s allowed. But the blood-light

o’ a well-wrought bridge? The darker paint

of later beneath a neon sign:

pink ol’ Roxy muck o’ fuzz in a head full

of hard lines? The heavy greyness of the dreg-light?

Grand Centraal! When you arrive it’s way too late!

I’m mixed up in shadows that just won’t wait!