Because reasons, seven a.m.
in Lafayette Park Tai Chi ladies attend to their balance
tinned melodies rise from a portable player
tucked by the verge
a man with a fighting dog looks on
snub-nosed both, smoking (just the one)
silent, violent
and I walk away
down Gough, the long slide
I don't know this town
if I follow the dawn
will I enter a bad-land
will I earn an inch
in the daily paper?
will I meet the salt
of a fine sharp night
the hungry and the angry
will they decide to have me?
the sun hangs over Mary of the Assumption
cool and pale at this hour
permitting me to study
its torn edges
downtown now
to the place I should be
past wanderers and weavers
piss-cracked jeans, palms hardened
by the friction of seasons
in Crissy Field I gaze over the grey plane
pick my way through wind-warped grass
until the stepping stones fade
and my ankles bite
while to my right and a father casts from the jetty
as his son looks on
crying out
for instant results
by stepping in I surround myself
I need to know everything
the structure of wood
the journey its mother took
the circuitry of stone
the motives of the ocean
the reasons for your silence
the failure to look over
when we passed on the street
at one with the city
I know everything now
all the reasons
reasons beyond
my primitive sense
a decade of reasons
a tracery of ancient slights
emotional stakes
struck deep below ground.
in Lafayette Park Tai Chi ladies attend to their balance
tinned melodies rise from a portable player
tucked by the verge
a man with a fighting dog looks on
snub-nosed both, smoking (just the one)
silent, violent
and I walk away
down Gough, the long slide
I don't know this town
if I follow the dawn
will I enter a bad-land
will I earn an inch
in the daily paper?
will I meet the salt
of a fine sharp night
the hungry and the angry
will they decide to have me?
the sun hangs over Mary of the Assumption
cool and pale at this hour
permitting me to study
its torn edges
downtown now
to the place I should be
past wanderers and weavers
piss-cracked jeans, palms hardened
by the friction of seasons
in Crissy Field I gaze over the grey plane
pick my way through wind-warped grass
until the stepping stones fade
and my ankles bite
while to my right and a father casts from the jetty
as his son looks on
crying out
for instant results
by stepping in I surround myself
I need to know everything
the structure of wood
the journey its mother took
the circuitry of stone
the motives of the ocean
the reasons for your silence
the failure to look over
when we passed on the street
at one with the city
I know everything now
all the reasons
reasons beyond
my primitive sense
a decade of reasons
a tracery of ancient slights
emotional stakes
struck deep below ground.
Philip Berry's poems have appeared in Lucent Dreaming, Cypress Poetry, Lunate Fiction, Deracine and The Healing Muse. He lives and works as a doctor in London. Website: www.philberrycreative.wordpress.com; Twitter: @philaberry.