Magritte’s Lovers
(after Poppies by Christopher Watt)


not grim enough
in this reprint.

I who grudge upwinding girders
crept into the arch
at 25 rue de Berri.
Gutters trickled outside.
Perpetual motion.
Rivers running uphill.

We’re like Magritte’s Lovers,
you said,
gone for good, the dummy run.
This memory —
each time it’s provoked
adds up to a clear-cut
Tuesday morning,
fawn of autumn in the air.

A reprint?
Ah, you’re so twentieth century.