street stalls of books outside

the shop in Charing Cross   tatty stacks of Edwardian

memoir, kitchen-sink Osborne looking

back in anger

and Punch
              novels from days

of smoky pubs and bombsite London   
              my vagrant hour, rummaging broken spines, bargains

fifty pence, in mythic memory   before

asymmetrical towers shouldered

skylines near St. Paul’s   before WiFi   facial recognition

software   future fantasy

heralds
              everything, pre
              there   John Berryman 
              diamond geezer moonshine   Homage to Mistress Bradstreet

signed

‘Harriet from John, a fellow traveler, with all good wishes’
              from my last pound note, fifty pence

change   held back to feed the meter in my room   
              Pimlico   shabby chic, chipped-paint mantlepiece   Dali print

of melting time   on the table, the book of poems
              through the window, wet streets   a red

phone box

opposite, blood-garish   the phone 
              ringing and ringing