Homing

Homing

Give me 10p and I’ll love you.
You know me, as you step out of
the shop-doorway dreaming of sunshine

or of murdering your bosses.
Walk up the street with me; fall in
with my largactyl tread. It’ll

be as if we’re riding the same bicycle –
easy, like this, shoulders together –
two better than one for the uphill push.

Let me and I’ll steer you
through this six o’clock Friday
emptied of everything. Drift

with us seaward across town: we’re all
doing this, homing in our style,
imperfectly choreographed

as if the air’s driving us – but gently –
in this morris rehearsed for years.
Give me 10p and I’ll love you.

You know me. It leaves us, the hour
of urinals and derelict bus-shelters,
of war-memorial expanses

where nature throws up for us
ale-cans and lead-white tulips.
The hour of dismantled windbreaks

leaves us as we collect each other
to wait for the daylight fade-out.
Remember me. Lie down with us

between the upturned boats, out of
reach of the sea’s openhandedness,
its gift of water on stones.

Sleep and wake and sleep with us
among stickleback memories
and old guilts, among the quanta of small pains.

You’ll know me when the dogs
wake us, untransfigured, to each other.
Give me 10p and I’ll love you.