August 2006

I am awake
It is Tuesday morning
It is raining down hard on Sloane Avenue
I can hear the screams of children from the school across the street
It could be a massacre
Such is the way my thoughts are framed today


I took the lift with a dying Albanian girl
She is working our block
We smiled at each other
She looked so young and old
I guess servicing the bloated men of Chelsea
Has taken its toll


Out in the streets it is bitterly cold
But I like to feel it
It helps me forget that it is three hundred and thirty-six hours since I last saw you

There is loss upon my breath


The waitress at Picasso's knows my shame
That I have no place among these streets
But she lets me have a smile
Because neither does she


And this is as far as I have come today
trembling at my table
I am angry and in shivers

because I woke up this morning with ash upon my lips
the rain was on my window
there was loss upon my breath
because the wealthy men of Chelsea are paying for their flesh
and I have learnt to be a silo
for this world and the next
because of You
who would deign to lead me on a tour
from Eden to Auschwitz
from the crèche to the crucifix
from the dim light of a teenage womb
to the baying crowd of a concert hall


I am not waiting
I try only to survive
there are brown leaves on the streets
because everything must fall