The Alexandria Quartet
We bought it 30 years ago,
mooching one Saturday
among the bookshops and bordellos
on the west bank of the Nith,
and shared it: we always shared;
our names bracketed on the fly leaf.
From the very first page,
my mind’s eye shows me
a thousand tormented streets,
we wanted to be in Egypt
or at least a simulacrum,
somewhere with dwarves,
and Melissa and Justine
to be torn languidly between.
We were ok for dwarves,
but in every other respect
only the Salutation seemed to fit.
Perched high above the river,
after 8 pints the body odour there
seemed like the musk of the Levant,
and we could imagine
our curiosity doing battle
with the tireless apathy of the summer air.
The tireless apathy of the summer air,
page 96, that’s where I ended,
the perfect place that September,
a line made for me.
He was different, slower,
more dogged.
For weeks we’d swopped
but then, after all these years,
our lives diverged.
It was his turn, he forgot,
I was at uni most weekends,
there were girls and other friends,
we lost touch, he got ill,
and who cares about an unread book?
But when he died it came back.
I have it now, in my hands,
and the touch brings
an aching mix of heat,
and loss and wasted time.
Page 96, still dog-eared,
but there are others further on,
like footholds in a climb.
Perhaps like Malory he’d made it
and perished coming down,
white faced and silent,
through half lit paragraphs
to where it all began,
with the shadow light of evening,
the rapture of return.
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