Leaving London

The sirens cease across the city

Where still I cannot find the grocery store.

The kids are kicking piled bricks,

Excited school is canceled for the week.

An hour later,

I investigate a rhythm faint,

The quiet crunch

A crispy leaf,

A spinning pendulum on slender thread

Of spiderweb

Inside the grating

Dumbly driven by the air

Against the shaft

Again, again.

The cushioned beat is not a dream.

It's just a trance.

My pulse continues,

Never slows to normal any longer.

You maintain a mute superiority

For staking claim on top your roots.

I never knew this neighborhood

Before we married.

Pulling from the station,

You're collapsing tiny.

London bridge is falling.

Once you let it loose,

It's gone,

A silver ring released to currents

Carried down the ambling water,

Down the leaving stream.

- 3/18/26