Summertown

edgeways winter           white-mouthed streetlamps                    waver

the keys in my pocket                like anxieties                 rattle their skins against each other

a smattering of fireworks           clinking against the fragment moon         far-off dinner plates

the road            curls like spilt milk        into a solid vein of white

laundrette

                    bookshop

                                                  corner store

church bell

hollow-tongued             as the lantern                 in the chinese takeaway             upside down

I feel their golden emptiness                  and the unheard alarm behind glass             everything must go        like summer                  and the couple               kissing              in an alley’s cradled fist

I too then          am elsewhere                the evening is a silent ghost                    searching,

lost. ∎

Words by Helena Aeberli.  Art by Eloise Fabre.