Like snow on a fictional neighbour’s rooftops 
you had written or our plans had changed;
Time-indifferent
we’d inhabit those absences; 
Modern roads   
slashed travel time to near nothing.
–
Somewhere in Europe 
you were Pisa say and  
every Name has a Place 
nominal as you make it
–
The diary blinks
intermits 
falls from screen
but touch a map 
the once-lost province   
blooms in 
arcs of promised flight  
Is this how the stomach 
travels…though there 
you were bodiless  
small red dot in motion 
–
ave maria: gravitas 
grounded: fatalism
coded futures   tell       
a fraught reading 
of your non-reply
–
If Gibraltar
stares at Spain  
or that neat key-hole 
lighting the dullest tunnel’s 
terminus announces France 
we speak again 
your eyes
the miles 
are nothing