Lions with Curls

How is it that a bird sits centered in memory, but the cage and the living room and the color of a mother's robes have faded to sepia? Remember on the shelf a mug that said Trafalgar Square in red. For nine months it was the bus stop. Now no lions can impress.

I found missing letters for green envelopes; found international polaroids. Statues blur at high speeds--a caption reads is this the only time they move? Don't send me anything more ce sera le dernier. Hear that heartbeat underwater. Through pipes I can feel the ocean just two-hundred feet away. I press my ear to the waves that are born between this island and yours and there must be millions.

An ocean between like this: I sit on the phone as the sun rises and wait as the transatlantic static collects like creeping buttercups in the alley, like Hare's foot clover in my Soho, in your Soho.