By Tomas Gustav

Where exactly had they been friends?
Was it high in the Wicklow Mountains,
in a long, uncertain afternoon,
after the car door thudded open
and they were left, suddenly alone;

or flying at night time above lives
like theirs, stubbornly invisible
between the capillaries of lights
that make homes as impenetrable
as air in the section of a lung;

or stood apart on a bridge in Pest,
so hopeless that it had turned pale
and become an outrageous stage set
for their own self-conscious, tired play,
shamed to awkwardness by their distrust;

or was it loving, but still loveless,
as, over London, an autumn sky
spent itself and they watched on benches
hidden in suburban shrubbery,
sure of no other nearness than this?

About the Author

Tomas Gustav is an art historian and writer living in Austria. He studied and then taught at Cambridge University for many years before moving to the University of Vienna. He has been a member of many creative writing groups and workshops, and has published poetry in books and journals, as well as numerous journal articles about poetry, art and culture.