London by Tishani Doshi

London

Waking beside a broad and empty face

I lie to him about what moves me

And it is nothing to do with wooden farmhouses,

Cathedrals, or damp grass.

It is nothing to do with what brought me to him,

Or the perpetual blue sky I’ve given up

To be here, in Rathbone Place,

His bed of white, ragged spaces.

That lifeless life, the thick body he carries around

Under his skin – What have these to do

With our meeting in the middle of listless winter

Full of drink and desperateness?

I pick up my uncleanliness, six black pieces

Of clothing and slip into the morning.

London at 7am is grey, unmoving –

A city in slow recovery.

It is only ache after all that takes us anywhere –

So I return to a borrowed room, 

A collection of things of mine, resembling

Nothing and stubbornly strange to me.

All night there has been such clattering and heaving.

The wind outside is full of noise and raging.

But it is quiet here, by myself, alone

With ideas of love and not much else.