You were not there.
An hour of pacing, clock watching.
Then headlong through tangled crowds and ramps,
picking my way to the Thames.
Below the span of trains and traffic,
books in line laid out
spine uppermost.
From the far bank, a scrubbed Westminster
faces clean St. Thomas,
where patients wait in lists.
I buy a paperback keepsake of the meeting.
Crossing further up, a crow
flaps the other way and perches
black on an abandoned fence:
carrion guard to a temporary plot
of Lambeth wasteland.
From bridge to pictures, and recognition
of old friends: three dancers,
a snail and a tree.
I rest with coffee on polished wood,
and memories.
Other faces mirrored;
other eyes reflect their secret grief.
A child leaves, and breaks the reverie.
I too make for the exit, and spill
directionless out on the pavement:
a fox seeking earth, seeking safety.
Salvation arrives as a Routemaster,
red and numbered thirty-seven.
1987
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