Epektasis

The room is a womb of heat—
breath without questions,
milk-set, conscience-clean,
cupping us in its palm
as if the fall were forgiven
before the slip of the hand.

Beyond the balcony’s blink of glass
winter keeps its stern religion:
frost sewing scripture
on iron rails,
ice glazing the square to relic,
the day held fast,
a saint pinned in cold.

There—
a playpark of metal ribs
where bodies lift
their daily courage,
hoisting ordinary halos,
pulling skyward
as if blue were a bar
that might yield to faith.

They do not know I watch,
memorising motion
the way you learn a face
for the last time—
eyes drinking
what time will steal.

A pigeon, at my height,
builds without pause:
twig to twig,
no question asked,
the calm arithmetic
of here.

I envy that grammar—
the bone-true knowledge
of standing,
of circling back
to where the body fits.

Germany,
you make no soft promises.
Your light is pale, mineral,
trained to survive.
Your dark keeps history close,
teeth quiet,
never dull.

I love your language—
hinged, load-bearing,
words that carry weight
and do not bow.
A culture unthinned,
edges kept sharp,
streets honest
even when the cold
refuses charm.

My family sleeps here,
not in a clean line
but scattered
like nails in old beams—
rusted, still holding
the house I lived inside
before I knew its name.

Now the hour knocks.
Checkout at eleven.
As if a clock
could loosen this,
as if time came
jingling keys.

Between eleven and four
is a room with no furniture,
where waiting hums
and the body
has nowhere
to place itself.

I am asked to leave
a room still warm with me.
That is the ache—
not departure,
but kindness
that does not resist it.

I am braided
into this ground,
no passing thread—
roots finding water
and refusing disguise.
A tree lifted whole,
boxed and billed.

Shipped—
as if breath were light,
as if roots made no sound
when torn.

I return to a country I know,
a place that holds me
by habit and bone.
Still,
something there will hunger.
Something will harden
to a slow, metallic taste.

The body learns injustice early.
It tightens
long before the mind speaks.

My partner is here.
My friend.
They plan,
as the living do.
I love them.
That is not in doubt.

The wound is elsewhere.
It is shaped like a map.
You can leave people gently.
You cannot leave a place
that has learned
your name.

Belonging arrives
before permission.
Love does not
issue papers.

Now I stand
in the seam—
warmth behind me,
winter rehearsing its grip.
The self thins,
static
at the edge of signal.

The airport waits,
white-throated,
corridors clean as mercy.
Lives emptied into trays—
keys, belts,
small forbidden waters—
as if nothing essential
might be taken.

Outside,
the swing creaks.
The pigeon counts.
The ordinary
continues.

Soon the door will close.
Soon the key will cool
in my pocket.
Soon the air
will take command.

For one last breath
I stand at the glass
and let the city
cup my face
in winter light,
letting myself be known
by what I am losing.