Don’t tell our parents, but I think I’m ready
for the next step, I want to hold your hand
and perhaps walk the longer way home.
I’ll shorten my stride and keep in time with us
because it all slows down when you’re talking
when you lick your lips to keep them moist
and they manage to reflect the dipping sun.

I’d like to sit face to face with your face
while you talk about the sky and the stars
about the horizon and what lies beyond
the slow canal and the horse that’s pegged there.

But let’s not tell our parents yet,
I’d like to find out what this is like
before they talk and spoil it for us.

If pain was a friend instead of a burden
– if I could make peace with the unwelcome
– if perhaps I could see it as a teacher, not in a lecture theatre (distant and with sharp echoes), but in a private tutorial with soft furnishings and perhaps a vase of flowers.
– If her lessons came with handouts, exploring with pictures the reason for the searing , the overwhelming

– but no, my pain is that annoying parent on a pointless trek, refusing to stay silent, incessant in her insistence that we can’t part ways

– if we came to a fork in the road and after a heated debate I could go left, and leave her wounded and helpless
– if I was free to explore the trees, to dance, to run and bask in the sunlight, confident to climb down every crevasse without fear of the return journey
– if on the path from the forest, when heading back to the city I saw her again, would I pass on the other side or would I Samaritan her, bind her wounds, carry her back with me, better able to support her after the respite?  Would I better appreciate her for who she is, or would I continue to carry her with resentment?

- If I came across the fork again, I think I would disable her as before and happily leave her bleeding.  I would lose myself in the forest once again.  

But I’d still be able to see the city.

As I wait, I see on an uncomfortably high stool
the grandmother perching opposite
the comfortably bored teenager
replete in his distressed Ramones tee shirt
and ripped white jeans.

She holds her black coffee with both hands, while he plays
with the long spoon in his tall glass of hot chocolate,
her eyes focused on the top of his head,
his engrossed in the puddle of brown milk around his saucer.

Below the music, she pleads for a friendship that he
shows no interest in until she reaches into her bag
and emerges with perhaps something that he’s been waiting for –

And beyond the counter, shielded by formica, the percolators and stacked cups, the apprentice barista drops his tray and from the back two men in ill-fitting suits give a half-hearted cheer, while his boss withholds her anger in front of the paying customers, but judging by her face she would gladly take her protégé by his stained apron and string him up – I think this isn’t the first time she’s taken the cost of breakages out of his salary.

And I’ve missed what it is grandma has presented to her grandson
– all I can see is a suggestion of his fingers playing with silver,
a ring perhaps? The hot chocolate is pushed aside and his shoulders straighten.  
She still looks uncertain, and the seconds drag until his face seems to soften.
He looks up and mouths what might be a thank you.  

And he doesn’t withdraw his hand when she covers it with her own.

Margy shouts her advice from outside Greggs
unsolicited, but often needed
usually it concerns fashion
- the choice of a scarf
- inappropriate shoes for the weather
- or the state of a pair of trousers, hanging and baring a cleavage
(“No one wants to see that, dear.”)

Margy can be relied upon to wear the same distinct socks
– draped around her stocking feet, their multi-coloured design now greyed
by wear and the Uxbridge Road.

Margy is more reliable than her friends and she tells them as much
(“You’re all a bunch of time wasters.”)
demanding more loyalty and demands from me enough for a cup of tea
- a very expensive one apparently.

And on a Sunday, she’ll kneel and pray throughout the early Eucharist,
declining the bread and wine
(”On, no dear.  It’s not a habit I want to cultivate.”)

In another life, my father
must have been a blacksmith.
Essential in his village
Essential to be needed
(otherwise what’s the point?)

Swinging his hammer in heat, in smoke,
content within his St Bruno haze, suspicious
of anything lighter than black leather
anything lighter than brass fittings

- comfortable with sweat stains and scattered ash,
scars and deep bruises marking him
a man’s man and breadwinner,

- relaxed with the air blue, the tribe white
and his iron laughter echoing with every strike,

every blow shaping his son
into his family’s likeness.

I breath in to find my inner Geezer
ready to speak with a more common vernacular.
I channel my South Londoner
and ensure I have my chipped mugs
ready out on the counter.

I pull the Nescafe and PG Tips forward
from the dusty recesses of the top cupboard
and locate the white sugar, checking that I have
at least five heaped teaspoons’ worth
for the coming encounter.

Later, from behind the net curtains,
I see him sizing up my roof from his van
and I wait for him to walk up the drive to push the doorbell.
Oh, no, THE DOORBELL!

And, too late, what credibility I had pieced together cringes
at the anticipation of the Batman themed doorbell ring,
which until that morning had seemed an appropriate ice breaker.

She chose me from among the younger boys to cross the long floor
and on the far side, in the half-curtained sunlight
she took hold of me and my innocent limbs

- she helped me reach up her long back, guiding my trembling hands -
and then she enveloped me, joining her body to mine.

I could feel the damp of her warmth,
our bodies rolling together while her music set the pace
which I struggled to maintain, but somehow I kept in step
with her rise and fall, with her supple flow,
navigating this complex dance,
deep in this safe space
in the circle of her practiced arms.

The pre-pubescent boys looked on
and the teacher's graceful Foxtrot took me
across the full length of the room
from boyhood to something new.