London 2009

As I turn left off Oxford Street
cloaked in a low sky and shuffling
along with the other furrowed brows

I search for the accents of my youth
“Tomato” or “Tomahto” or “Tomata.”
“Aunt” or “Ant” or “Auntie”

Punching my cold fists into a
Harrods jacket I enter the tube,

shortly reaching a grey gray
station and see the pub with an
old fashioned clock against the
familiar liquored mirror,

damn, it’s way past our meeting time,
and
am I at the right place?

I really could go for
comfort food now, we need this

Connection

“Buffalo Wings?” Or is it “Fish and Chips?”
Maybe “Saltfish?”

Which of these do I want?
Eh, it’s too late for such a search.

A sudden hiss of wind
angrily flaps my jacket, and
a raindrop

taps my shoulder—
as a stranger does when they have
wandered too far and need
direction.

The rain falls.
The sun falls.
The fog falls.
The days fall from the harboring arms of mothers.

I walk alongside the parceled flats,
pausing at a low bridge and look out at
the bruised dusk of the Old World
as the wind swings my bag like a beacon
against the cold.

Oh, come now - and dance with me
Caribbean.

Published in The Storyteller Magazine, Spring 2014, “11 months in London”

Tony Walton