City in the Intermediate Realm

 

Poem from a title by Paul Klee

 

Between ground and sky
its streets unfold a crumpled
plan of another city,
one you haven't been to

where cafés fade in smoke
behind peeling plaster
with bullet holes suspended
in fractions of a second

which will not pass.
The eyes of strangers
swerve out into traffic but
their scent swoops close,

vanishes in the river's
damp stench. You cross
the bridge which trembles
slightly when your feet

fall into a rhythm of patches,
ochre, dove, sepia, steel,
changing like snatches overheard
of languages you instantly forget.