If I could touch it, feel the overcast sift between my fingertips, I would not wander the sour barley stench of thin grey walkways and startle sleeping pigeons for a cappuccino and soda slice. The café’s two ceramic bowls come alive with dripping violets beneath the creak of a wooden fish ubiquitous as the bog black soup and sea foam crest, the animal pies, the fry. And I’m lost in a lazy wicker seat, a leaner of sorts, until the pleated green dress in passing. The chestnut hair. Unpainted eyes. The brushing— a scent of lavender and vanilla warms the mouth. It must also be in hers. She sits by the water, holds her knees, reads. Leaves with the soft silt of evening. Now the streets are oyster shells abandoned to the walking tides, and only the river like a neon mosaic taking the electric flow into itself craves no one.