It's a romantic city
(apparently) but
for me it's

the wet London streets
I walk to reach you

stale milk in coffee
shop teas, sugar spoons left
on greasy table tops

the drizzle of rain
relentlessly beating

the orange lights of
taxis, magnified
in the droplets

***** staircases that take
me underground

the songs talk of
Waterloo Bridges
and sunsets

that bounce off the
Thames, as if the water
is polished glass

but I sat there one night
crying, my heart breaking
over South Bank

and the sunlight was never the same

give me battered books
piled dangerously in doorways

dusty corners of theatres

and the rain