Deep Freeze

Tap, thump, tap, thump
I climb onto the bus
and freeze myself.
I must have travelled for as long as it takes
to travel the distance I was meant to travel.
An empty line between two points
that I had filled with warmth.

I thaw and start to move.
I get off the bus and head for a small bookshop.
I’ll read a little, or chat with someone in the street...
If it’s a stranger, I’ll introduce myself.

If none of this happens to me,
I’ll freeze myself.

Tap, thump, tap, thump
I go down into the underpass and head for the place where we meet.
I turn to myself and begin to imagine
your photographs, scattered on the floor or hung in disarray
on the columns of unknown corridors, on crumbling walls.
That’s from the exhibition among the ruins where trees were growing.
The trees grew well because there was no roof.
There your photographs would have been at home...

If I think of nothing, and if the day is burnt to ash by sorrow
or empty for no reason,
I’ll freeze myself on my way to you.

But if the time that must run out for me to cross these distances,
which I must cross so that my image may meet the truth,
does not hint that it is time to thaw
(and time has no such habits),
I may stay frozen far too long
and when I stand before you,
you will not feel my warmth.
The time will pass that has to pass
for you to freeze yourself and
patiently travel the whole of one frozen man before you.