After traveling
I lost Europe to my imagination,
which has made up its mind.
I reach in looking for Budapest
and it comes out Cubist;
multi-coloured tiles and the lady Victory in green.

Work is scrubbing at the dream of it,
friends are hanging frames around my neck
and my grandmother still points out planes
and wonders aloud why they’d want to leave,
while the cancer rots her.

I’ve come back to the live-in-laws
with no money, and Sydney has a fetish
but I can’t afford the outfit. My girl
suffers her sexually transmitted debt
like malaise and I leave her to it.

A job interview invites like a foreign city in Europe;
everyone is drinking something unpronounceable
but the Beatles are on the radio.
With any luck, I’ll marry and move there.
I’ll need to learn the language
which is convenient,
because I can’t speak in this one anymore.