(after Frank O’Hara)
One of the drinkers, huddled under the sky-garden wedge of the Cherry Groce memorial,
has broken off from from the group to improvise an elaborate martial arts routine with a crutch he clearly doesn’t need.
He shifts from one-handed to two handed, from staff to kendo stick,
with such gusto and intent that I start thinking he might just swing that thing at me,
before he shrugs, perhaps satisfied that the perimeter is secure, and rejoins the group.
I pass them and make out a sleepy trumpet, crooning from a bluetooth speaker and then I hear that voice –
and the scene is suddenly flooded with tenderness
and an endless, autumnal warmth gilds the slight chill of a late-spring Brixton morning,
and all of our troubles scarper to whatever corners will harbour them,
beyond the scope of this sudden, trembling love.
11/05/26
🪴