Eternal September Again

I was at my brother's house in Newington
took a walk to Dalston
at the crossroads, licking my canine
running keys through my fingers
the year had flipped, weather was bouncing,

my mind was on the outside/
the evening was easy/
that dip in the Kingsland road, a ribbon/
she was wearing dungarees/ I wasn't interested/
sky had showed us something/
she had no black nail varnish

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the sky had slipped over Clapham/
distant red seam, edge-flaking sky-metal,
like the back of some ... filthy cave/ buildings coated
in NASA drips/ leaking space-stations/
it's hard to over-do
how that part of Battersea depresses me,
streets a wave
of lava from the power station/
I am still inhaling you/
you were a surprise/
Camden weed
winter on the schoolbus
taxis over Hammersmith

                  

•••••

It was nice of you to mention

and allow me to intrude

briefly in your education

it looked like you were having a good time

the Bow Road like a curtain

I was stuffed in an office in Rome

exhausted red aperitif

up and walking/

you told me to lie when the time came,

you allowed me/

Heart-attack or apoplexy? Hot blood

boiling the water in Vardaris Cove

and surfacing to warm island-stones

warming wind-cooled jelly skin

and the hollow rock there breathing