004 - London Plane

that morning you left me a letter “See you at 6” in your unmistakeable handwriting that morning my lock wouldn’t open i gave it some grease and cleaned my hands with a teeshirt found in the rut of my backpack eighteen minutes to work with time to lock my bike i chained it to a London plane camouflaged in olive, grey and green inside, practicing my words forgetting the time i wrote *boom patroon verdwijnen* you wrote again a note, that afternoon he passed, you said no surprise, i thought the way things were going. two pm, work closes at five. outside my bike is stuck to a London plane with colors that make you invisible. a gift shop at the museum i could buy you a card? six pm and I walk down Spuistraat where London planes line a street so rare in the center a tourist asks me for directions pronouncing “Spui” like Louis in french, like your father i thought of you but i did not write you back looking instead for an alphabet of my own to draw up the words i owe you so generic so fixed such as I am sorry for your loss