I’m sitting in a city square, so nondescript
it could be anywhere, and is.
Once I’ve drunk this coffee I shall gather
my belongings and set off again down
one of all the avenues that radiate from here.

Perhaps I'll find myself between tall buildings,
looming over narrow streets
like redwoods over needled paths, their plainness
finding counterparts down in the clothes
of those who crowd between them.

Or there’ll be limestone edifices, friezes carved
in strange and slightly sinister though abstract shapes,
the people dressed in grey and green and beige —
the men in kilts, the women trailing gowns of taffeta,
with one arm bare and hennaed.

Once I wandered through a maze of wooden
ziggurats with varnished pediments
and brightly painted porticoes; not a soul in view,
but sometimes, from the corner of my eye, I glimpsed
a small and slinking shape slide out of sight.

At other times I’ve come across a street
that could have been in London, Paris, Athens,
Ýstanbul — except for some small detail out of place:
an oddly canted bench, an old advertisement,
a child’s doll, or a street musician’s animal associate.

Whatever city I discover, though,
with its distinctive buildings, people, customs,
signs in languages of every kind and script —
whatever vehicles I dodge and public transport
that I ride, all paid with local currencies
that turn up in my pockets or my wallet —
at the end of every day I find
I’m entering this square.

Each night I dine in one of three or four
small restaurants; I sit and have a nightcap
in this same café. I sleep alone in a hotel
that’s cheap but clean, and eat my
breakfast out in this café again.

And every morning, once I’ve had a coffee
and collected up my things,
I set off, taking one from all the avenues
that lead out from this square,
which could lead anywhere,
and do.