MAÑANA, MAÑANA, DEREK WALCOT

I remember the cities I have never seen

exactly. Silver-veined Venice, Leningrad

with its toffee-twisted minarets. Paris. Soon

the Impressionists will be making sunshine out of shade.

Oh! and the uncoiling cobra alleys of Hyderabad.

To have loved one horizon is insularity;

it blindfolds vision, it narrows experience.

The spirit is willing, but the mind is dirty.

The flesh wastes itself under crumb-sprinkled linens,

widening the Weltanschauung with magazines.

A world's outside the door, but how upsetting

to stand by your bags on a cold step as dawn

roses the brickwork and before you start regretting,

your taxi's coming with one beep of its horn,

sidling to the curb like a hearse -- so you get in.