48

Session 14 (20/9 – 8.33 a.m.):

– Nope, that’s not it
They’ve borrowed a car from a friend of Annie’s
& are driving up & down the city streets
hoping to jog his memory
nothing looks familiar
so much seems to hinge on that last day
the street, the school, the dream
he’s replayed them so often in his mind
that he’s beginning to fear that’s all they are
just wish-fulfiment dreams
the last spasms of an oxygen-starved mind

Annie is nothing if not ingenious
she starts by trying to make a list
of all the language schools in the city
but there are hundreds of them
and all his suggested clues
the curious Eastern names, the student’s faces
are apparently so common as to be
quite useless
after that they look at maps
trying to spot any likely street configurations

It seems as if they’ve been doing nothing for hours
except cruise down streets
trying to spot strange numbers
names addresses
in the long garish semi-colonial blocks of shops
that fence the city’s outer suburbs
all in all , they’ve had enough

– Time for a coffee, she says
pulling up beside a greengrocer’s
this city lives on fruit & vegetables
seen from its highest point