Someone Else in Hyde Park

by Peter Coghill

In the night, search for her in open spaces:
against the city’s steel backscatter sky
where clouds slink down to warm their bellies by
the lights. Search where the dark conceals all faces:
beneath cathedral spires—in their black graces
she might linger, and hear a student try
his fumbled, first toccata. Search nearby,
down any path that leads to empty places.

Her seeking figure’s like a rock that braces
against the suck of waves. One night, perhaps,
if night fulfils its promise and erases,
she’ll find that home for all her dreams. Perhaps—
meanwhile she searches all the hotel floors
along the long sorrow of corridors.