Howard Firkin
I’m bungee walking round the streets. That line
I bought is pulling taut. I ought to sort
of pull up short, stop wishing that you thought
of me at all, of anything of mine.
The fall is all: last thing I’ll ever see.
Goodbye. I’ve said it. But I meant to say
you brought me flight, a leap of faithlessness
into these concrete footpath rivers: mess
you’ll leave for someone else to clean away.
I’ll stay. A stain on someone’s memory.

I can’t complain. My footsteps on their beat
repeat the same old stuttering refrain:
your life’s not over till you hit the street;
and home is any lane in which you’re slain.