black and white photo

(Or  Meteorology Has Always Been an Inexact Science.)

It is getting late here
in the suburb that reminds one of light and blindness
at the same time;

the trees are quiet and fragile
in the snowed-in quadrangle,
and that house: whose purpose I don’t know.

The best thing about snow
is that it turns your life into
a black and white photograph;

as if what is happening now
is already memory and you are
looking at it safely from a distance;

I have never eaten
reindeer rissoles before and I am
experiencing other things for the first time;

(crowds all around and
the hustle and bustle of the mensa,
arrogant man opposite us with newspaper.)
And thinking about it afterwards
now in the black-and-white-photo-ness
of less that fourty-five minutes ago;

my stomach hurts and I
am able to realise it is not up to you
and there is plenty of information

on which to decide to leave.
I can now make decisions which are right
and which I don’t necessarily like.

Perhaps this will be remembered
as one of the advantages I had
in being so much older than you.

And  I will miss very much
the blond wood of the desks, the green overhead lamps
the quietness around, and in, my mind;

I would mention your temples, your sweat,
and double moons on my shoulder skin
but I am savvy now to sentimentality.

It is possible that, in the next days
we will eat with the French and take
a sauna with the skinny, funny boy.

With less time remaining
I will think differently about everything,
listen and feel like guest and tourist again -

Children on sleds
Those fat black birds with the blue mark
Big, white, fish-pudding sausage
Snus tucked in between teeth and lips
Numerous cheese slicers in one drawer
Lime-wire icons, wide light switches
Fur-lined Converse laced around hems of jeans
Smoke-free clubs, willow-footed dancers

Sitting two persons to one big chair, hands gritty with salt
Sparks flying between sled-baldes, rocks and snow
Frozen waffles, icelandic chocolate
Weak tea from the plastic jug
Young women who look like cherubs
Young men who look like pixies
Soldiers taut in front of the palace
Black sludge piled at the side of the road
Candles burning outside the Bunnpris
Eating folded cake with sweet mock-cream
            and falling on wrists and arse and knees.
 
(When it’s black outside early
whole walls can turn into mirrors
and leave you sitting
with only yourself
to look at.)

Between our two cities
there are only two letters in common
and it’s not enough
what, with all those stark kilometres
all those degrees of celsius;

There’s only room at the end
for the street lights to come on,
I will make my way home without slipping in the dark.