as eurydice:

After a day of much jest and comfort in the sweet loving company of my Auntie from St. Paul, MN (plus a day in which I finished with four junky magazines in my position, oh! the Oscar fashion pictures) I finished a damn good day with a smashing finish. Smashed (a bit from the glass of wine) and smashed (Unclie's traditional sausage & mash dinner) and smashed (The George pub we ate at, built in 1723, bombed in 1941), I walked across Waterloo Bridge towards Waterloo station. In my slightly hazy state, I realized that the essence of London is contained half above the water and half under. The Waterloo Bridge is not a pretty bridge but at night you could very well want to build a palace right on top of its concrete sturdiness and sit there forever looking out at the river around you. Heading towards Waterloo station, the beautifully lit Houses of Parliament and Big Ben and the imposing London Eye to your right, the lit up Royal Theatre, St. Paul's dome, the tall chimney of the Tate Modern, and the silver Millennium Bridge to your left. And everywhere around you, the sparkling lights of a city still very much alive. After I crossed the bridge, I took an underground passageway right into Waterloo station. I passed a man sitting with sunglasses on quietly singing a strangely comforting tune and I smiled. I don't think he saw me because he was wearing sunglasses. Continuing on, I saw this poem written, in gold font, installed on the tunnel wall. Oh, a city who would put a poem like this deep within its earth:

Eurydice

I am not afraid as I descend,
step by step, leaving behind the salt wind
blowing up the corrugated river,

the damp city streets, their sodium glare
of rush-hour headlights pitted with pearls of rain;
for my eyes still reflect the half remembered moon.

Already your face recedes beneath the station clock,
a damp smudge among the shadows
mirrored in the train's wet glass,

will you forget me? Steel tracks lead you out
past cranes and crematoria,
boat yards and bike sheds, ruby shards

of roman glass and wolf-bone mummified in mud,
the rows of curtained windows like eyelids
heavy with sleep, to the city's green edge.

Now I stop my ears with wax, hold fast
the memory of the song you once whispered in my ear.
Its echoes tangle like briars in my thick hair.

You turned to look.
Second fly past like birds.
My hands grow cold. I am ice and cloud.

This path unravels.
Deep in hidden rooms filled with dust
and sour night-breath the lost city is sleeping.

Above the hurt sky is weeping,
soaked nightingales have ceased to sing.
Dusk has come early. I am drowning in blue.

I dream of a green garden
where the sun feathers my face
like your once eager kiss.

Soon, soon I will climb
from this blackened earth
into the diffident light.
-Sue Hubbard

Oh, a city like the city that is mine.