Highbury Fields

They rim an old London plague pit
and behind window spectacles
the houses of Highbury fields

are still thinking ; they watch us
pounce on misty tennis courts,
take our chances, roads crisscrossing.

Every morning on Highbury fields
I’d bump into a drinker woman and her Doberman,
both of them jaundiced eyed.

One drunk day she stabbed her lover dead;
lesbians, I read later, no mention of the dog-
and that was it, we didn’t see her again.

We give London its soul, yes
even boring old us,
London built on London dust.

Our sad little trysts are ghosts on the pavement,
London Brick, coral with kisses,
London railings, black with black dogs.