I remember the first time I heard about this city

we were children

I still have the picture

the pinned card

in my mind

He had returned from his trip

The small upstairs bedroom down the hallway, to the left, white door darker border

perhaps a golden, or a brown

perhaps a green

the blue carpet

the ugly varnished wooden shelf

the desk

the low console

the playstation

the discs

the trinkets

the clown

It must be a Sunday

I remember that he told me

the fair above the water

the bus ride

the tunnel under the Channel

the life within families

It's rare to remember that sort of thing

I mean the first time

the first proper names

the first image of something

the first time of a word

a sound

The g and the h on the card have been printed

inside the mazes liquid memories

So clear

Now I belong to that land

in a way

to the streets

live there

one kilometer from the beach maybe less

the sea at the end of the street

Deciding to not drop his hand

his stranger’s hand

something of us has been etched here

in this territory

these bars where we go early to speak more

this sudden night in the afternoon

to lead us to be a little deeper

to release more of us, more words

at the face, in the stranger hands of that other stranger

found in the morning at the end of a season

amongst the pages of a dry Dubliners

I remember the sensation of this book in my right hand at the end of August

I remember the gesture of storing it

and then, not the path shortly after

but the coffee

the coffee I drank with a dry fruit taste

Rewrite the card