Not much has happened since
your last letter. I have read parts of it
over again and to very close friends.
They have felt obliged to say something
as you have. They have been good friends.

The postcard is to show you
The sun-glazed coast of Salthill.
But, of course, it is winter here too.
I had not meant to carry on
about the fog. Though it rubbed out the channel,

probably it had no connection
with our way of vanishing. Still, you must know
how it is here; scraping beans up from Royal Worcester,
how the table is set. My foreigner and I
sit adjacent to each other swinging our forks,

wishing for something spicy.
Eventually we make apologies and slip through
slender passageways to breathe easier,
to feed on candy, to wrap our arms around ourselves
the way this country does it.

From my window and everyone else’s
there is a beautiful garden which is not ours.
From here I imagine you looking
wiser than you are
as if you knew this and that.