Cello

 

 

Crossing past the Edith Cavell monument

Eating a baked potato and a salad

From a polystyrene box

A traffic island , unmoving point among the London buses

and cabs and bicycles and vans
 

 

A cello’s aching notes cut though the hustle

Through cars and sirens . Caravans

Of visitors in puffa jackets

Wrapped up against the cold , from everywhere

 all chattering like birds in flocks
 

 

But some are caught there in a trance

Stand there or perch along a granite bench

Like pigeons stuck in superglue

Lifted

And along a wire

We cannot move
 

 

I look along the bench

Red eyes with tissues clutched in hands

I’m not the only one who’s taken through

A window to another world

And unexpectedly

Cut open like a can by these four metal
strings

 

 

A G - London - March 2019