After the English fry-up at the Turkish café,
I ask to use the toilet.
It’s through the back of the kitchen where his wife
Is washing pans, out the door and down the stairs
Rusted with years of rain and peeling paintwork.
In the passage down below, between moss-grown brick,
A patch of earth. So many pots line the walls.
A few onions sprout. A maple tree. Some emerald shoots
Beneath a seed packet sign saying “Gladioli”.
It is quiet here. A place where servitude ends,
Where pause is taken
From the sound of coffee machines and clatter,
Chip-fryer sizzling and the perpetual radio’s chatter.
A spot within the city, apart from the chaos upstairs,
Where the proprietor can breathe
More than fumes and demands,
Smoke a single cigarette and contemplate
A pebble carefully placed among the hidden green
And trace the ground of being, a memory of home.