Advice for next tenant

How to open a window

Overnight in Asia / a flight to quality / a rally at the long end of the curve /

At the morning meeting I’m alone with your clothes for the first time, fumbling the buttons /

Always show your working / With this gnawed biro I’ll quantify my fear of numbers /

You’re present in the beautiful mathematics of business school graduates / the flashing of minimised windows / nose pressed white against the glass /

I’m restless beside you in the polyphasic sleep of hardware / Closing our eyes and our mouths to each other we cannot say it /

Tonight the cleaners will smudge the glass with their fingers / flatten out the crumpled balls of paper into faxes bed linen bandages /

Working late I do not find you in the carpet’s faded constellations, but in the biro you lent me on one condition / I find you under strip lighting / in the bright creases of a soiled shirt /

One clear night in April’s thirty / I’ll go down to the basement and photocopy the windows /

Walking to the tube we’ll leave each other messages / predictive text /

Trying you again at the barriers I’ll let myself in with the keys I lost / I’ll tear through your house like a draft / scattering papers and slamming doors