London

Feverishly, I return always running
from Ireland and built-up
yellow brick calms me
like green fields for others
and over Waterloo Bridge I go
holding on to my hat in the wind,
lights strung out on the water
the Finnegans Wake babble
on the 76 of 77 languages
trundling to Dalston where the Turks
are polishing their pomegranates
and Joey and myself yap through
the basement window over our mugs
of Blackstrap Molasses. This afternoon standing
in the biting cold at Mile End
my foot on the step of the red routemaster
that familiar electronic drone
announcing 277 to Highbury Corner,
quickened me as if I’d come to a turn
in the black night, saw in a blaze
the lights of home.