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The city
Aleksandra Lane (Masssey University, New Zealand)

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They fade–our imaginary lovers. They fade and become one
with the city, traffic lights, a couple of cigarettes mindlessly smoked
in a dark alleyway long ago
waiting for dawn, where each day
loses its virginity, turning pink and wide-hipped, soon
to be touched by truck drivers and bakers, soldiers lining up
for orders, civilities exchanged by the elderly
and their starched carers.
They fade, the lovers we invent, and those invented
for us, allowing the weather to intervene,
telling us the same fairytale over and over, futile rain and wind
drowning real metaphors, real pacts between flesh
and flesh, glance and double glance.
Our imaginary lovers walk out unnoticed. Look, the world
never happened—it’s what they wanted you to think: in truth
there is no threat, the city insists. The city,
which is all of us. One by one.

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Aleksandra Lane is a PhD student at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. Her most recent book Birds of Clay was published by VUP in February 2012.

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