”Place” is a ghost;
b & w photographs
seeping
through the hallways
of going, going, gone,
Zoë's voice still bouncing
between the hardwood trees
'round the Bristol bus depot,
me heading for a wet plane,
to engage the North Sea cloud cover,
November 2004,
the wheel barrow of necessity
dropping me off
at Apartment Lust & Loss,
weight loss,
and visits with the counselor
got me, bit by bit, back
into my body,

but the best help came
from senior police officer
Thomas Rüden
back at work,
who pried into my psyche
and planted a mantra:

”I have a place to live,
I have a job to go to”

- which lifted me
above ground zero
in a matter of months

Cutting the anti-depressants
gave me fits of vertigo
for a while,
but I got out of the darkness
like a bathed baby
in clean clothes
and a rising hunger
for the surrounding world,
sleep, after a while, leaving me resting
till late in the mornings;
emails from Zoë in Tibet,
and then from New Zealand,
where she worked as an arborist
for three years,
didn't force me on my knees
anymore;
we were again emotional equals,
the way we once met
on a trail in Lapland,
on speaking terms,
like kinfolks,
or surgeons conferring
at the Intensive Care Unit,
or two strangers meeting
under a painting at the Louvre

as my visit to Yeovil and Crewkerne 2008
confirmed freedom and friendship