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TIM THORNE

 

         Tourism

for Pete Hay

 

Trieste, with the coaches diverted for a bike race

at the final stage of our own Giro d’Italia

(without the azzurra lycra and with

the luggage’s tiny wheels growling

over the cobblestones as I stride ahead,

the EJ ("Teddy") White of this event),

is still the city where intellect meets

emotion, where the wind and rain turn

cafe tables by the waterfront

to film-set desolation even while

the backup crews are setting up their vans

and TV cables wriggle along the quay

like the eels whose genitalia

Freud studied here. The cycling groupies

scarcely have time to scoff a slice of cake

from Joyce’s favourite pasticceria

whilst we have hours to stand, to walk, to wait.