Tonight our reality has the flatness

of a black and white photograph.

Curling in the corner of the couch,

the lavender of Earl Grey tea,

a pair of drab cushions,

the Channel from Britain to France

in a frame above the TV,

just wreckage and seafoam,

your body bridging over the waves of mine

breathing.

Your eyes drifting to the TV screen,

2, 4, 23,

11, 9, 45,

clicking empty channels,

crackling black and white snow,

no reception tonight—

but I know and

you know,

Fawlty Towers,

Julia Child,

BBC News for America,

that somewhere, the show

still broadcasts in full colour:

and the coffee still

percolates on the kitchen counter,

leftover pot roast,

hard bullet peas,

I scalded the gravy,

and by the pot, my crumpled dishcloth,

spent, wet, resting,

left curled in the bottom of your cup—

which we have held,

in which we have heard

the empty echo

of a seashell.

Hollow as the exhale

of traffic in a tunnel,

as a droning TV, under

the photograph of the Channel,

black and white waves like static,

There is no bridge,

but it can be traversed by tunnel.