In this poem we witness the poet's futile attempt to leave his past, in which he is trapped, because everywhere he looks he sees "black ruins" of his life.
It is not just a fleeting thought, as he emphasizes that he made many attempts to put into practice what he was feeling, however every effort proved useless and his desire ended up as a past reverie.
[2] Specifically, it refers to someone who wishes to leave their home but feel as though they cannot fix their life in the process, no matter how hard they try.
[2][3] The most notable line "the city will follow you" implies that the past can haunt a person as wherever they go they will not be able to escape from their own truth, their own reality and their own failures.
[10] An English translation of the poem appears in the appendix of the Lawrence Durrell novel Justine; Cavafy is a character in the work.
The poem is interwoven with a sequence documenting the Israeli West Bank barrier and the Qalandia checkpoint.