comes like an ambulance
you hear from a distance.
You were once told that
you don’t miss a person.
You miss the period they represent. 
What they were trying to say was
we’re over ·· In bed, 
you re-watch The Reader,
and think Why can’t life
feel like the towel
between Hannah and Michael
when she presses her body,
naked⁠, against his ··
This has to happen
in the summer of things.
The times you visit Berlin, 
someone unexpected
becomes your need.
Outside Friedrichstraße station, 
the air is different.
Someone has revealed its fictions:
even old seats, stale piss
from the nights before
pry you open ··
You notice the siren,
for the first time, wafting 
outside Michael’s room⁠.
You’ve heard it in person,
piercing as fluorescent orange
down Boddinstraße⁠ ··
Nine years since, you’ve
finally learned to say,
I’ve missed you and
I’m done with abstractions.