Purgatory

I’m eating chocolates I carried across the water
From the shop in the alley to my American bungalow
In a little golden box

One is full of bourbon cream, my paramour
It tastes of my grandmother’s living room, of ice cubes rattling
Should I be afraid of it

Months, years, without you, and all the rest of it stretched out into the night
A plane flying through time zones, in search of the next daybreak
And then back again

The boy on the train kept repeating the news:
It’s not raining in Dublin today
It’s not raining in Dublin today

Do you hear me
Through the window, house after lovely house, white stone, facing the coast with no fear
I could live there, and there, a life wiped clean and restarted

My thoughts arranged beneath a glass table in my brain, pressed flowers
In the city I came upon a screaming man at a street crossing
He followed me from one side to the other; I was already at loose ends

It seemed that even birds flew the wrong way
From behind me, he shouted what I already knew:
You should cut out your heart