(for Kev)

With recalls like shifting sand, it wouldn’t be a
Greek tragedy had he lost my book on the beach,

a memoir opened in his hands to a brush of sea
breeze – yet forgetting it there, pages would

have unfurled after waves rose up to layer it out
in its to-and-fro of liquid reading. Or if he left the

book opened on a taverna table when drinking
to a different forgetfulness, chancing Ouzo

after a vignette about Derrida, trying to deconstruct
that hangover before it arrives caboose-first,

someone else could stumble across and discover
the problems of language. But to leave behind in an

airport lounge was the existential gift to fellow
travellers, others to pick up the storylines and

possibly connect – having lost and found like us
too – and we can think it an altruism of a fortuitous

share when bringing a wider audience in to play,
an improvisation with a framing in our names.