CHARING CROSS ROAD
Ghosts of literature have all but quit
these haunts enshrined by number 84;
volumes of the loved, left and ludicrous
are unshelved now from this road.
Once a desperately lonely man—
we’d been discussing abstruse aspects
of Anthony Burgess—doused, like me,
in the literary, almost begged me
to go with him for a drink.
As I open my book in a pub on the street
I still see his moist, appealing eyes
searching for that key hardbacked volume
that would have revealed my backstory.
RAIN!
It was a one word cry for help,
not so much a plea as a command
from my usually undemanding mother.
Like her, the call was short and to the point.
It was all hands to the pegs, no exceptions.
Everyone would stop what they were doing—
studying, reading, watching television, playing with toys,
mid riff air guitar, masturbating—
to respond in a well rehearsed choreography
that saw the tallest collecting smalls
from the inner, shorter lines of the Hills Hoist.
Even the little ones knew their role in this drama,
standing as human clothes baskets to collect
and ferry into the house their moist booty
as the others took on the outer limits
of sheets, shirts for our father’s and elder brother’s work,
uniforms for the rest of us,
pillow cases, towels, singlets, pants, bras, socks
and those monogrammed hankies
with their blue K in the corner.
Later I learned this one word
was lifted despite cultural background
or attitude to one’s place in society.
The elements were not enemies,
just stern adversaries in a country
where the weather was what it was,
another changing aspect of an uneasy culture
where some things were just hung out to dry.
Flights, Issue Fourteen, November 2024
Flight of the dragonfly 