There was the clouded eye of the Friday fish, slatted seats

on trains, basins for breakfast drinks, and no flat bread.

The limestone Lycée swallowed us, stored us in cells,

bounced back our laughter down its corridors, sighed

from its drains at Midland vowels.

I looked up to the haughty on a catwalk, down on strollers

in the Bois from a fiacre which cost several thousand francs,

each sou a seedling dibbled from a tray and pressed

into a pot. With heels in holes from unfamiliar shoes,

the Champs Elysées saw me slipper-shod.

I learned to breathe garlic-Gauloise air, and the twist & flick

of table ‘foot’ from Rob of Loughborough. Tipsy on the scent

of coloured light in Notre Dame, I lost my girl’s-school heart

to Alistair who bought me grenadine. Even the crossing from Dieppe

couldn’t dim my longing to return.

Now there are different mysteries: blind-bend overtaking,

whether to retain the knife and fork, when does Bonjour

become Bonsoir, the favoured way of administering drugs,

graves like greenhouses, church clocks that double-chime

and how many kisses.

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No-one can buy me. I’m mercury and if you try to grab me

I’ll dribble from your clutch. My song is like the humming

of the stars, or the hush in seashells. I can melt your brain into

hallucination, or tease you like a name you can’t recall.

There’s no bargaining: I dole out favours on a whim. In dim-

lit theatres I may hold you for a while then let you drop so that

you jump. I can touch your mouth with honey but usually

I coat your tongue with dust of ancient libraries.

I don’t have a price. If you think you can seduce me

with excessive wine, I’ll humour you then

leave abruptly only to return just prior to the jeers

of the alarm. And my grit will fill your eyes for hours.

If I wish to I may drown you in my dolphin deep,

keep you there or swoop you to the surface, immerse

and wash you up repeatedly until you weep for peace.

No-one can buy me. I’m remedy, renewal; I am …

                                                                             shhhh.

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It will be a shedding of night thoughts,

the slipping of weight, a spiralling

up into the light, lark-like and lazy

but not suspended on notes.

It will be release from

hisses, shouts,

the noisy smiles of uniforms,

the scratchy eyes of the curious;

the drum of the pump will ease

as it fails to keep my soles

ground-fixed.

I will be adrift on wishes.

                                                  Up there

only a soft wind will push me around

in the quiet of thin air.

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The razzle-dazzle trawls us in, Janet and me,

we are netted by noise – the pound of generators,

the hurdy-gurdy giddy music. Deep breaths of hurrying

capture fried onions, engine fumes, spun sugar.

Queuing, sixpences clutched, we watch the bikers

park their Ariels and Beezers with a backward jerk,

shake down their drainpipes for their crepe-soled strut.

We look away, turning up our collars and our noses.

Hand-painted light-bulbs, blobbed and scratched,

fight with summer evening sun, illuminating stalls

piled-high with cut-glass vases, plaster figurines,

teddy bears, and lollipops as consolation prizes.

The Big Wheel turns its slow, chair-lurching circle

and from the top we see houses, pubs and shops

lined up to head for Stratford, point out the Odeon,

the junior school I left three years ago.

Dodgems shake our teeth as, obeying the injunction

not to crash, we’re bashed by boys pretending innocence.

The Wall of Death whirls, pressing our bodies outwards till,

when we are pinned in gravity-defiance, the floor recedes.

Two lads we know are trailing us, nudging and daring.

They take us on the Waltzer where, wild and dizzy

in its double gyre, we scream in simulated fear

and feel their soft arms tighten round our shoulders.

They test their skills on sideshows, but targets

they pock with shot stay upright, cards they spear

with darts score only enough for sweets, and

coconuts won’t fall. Janet is better at them all.

In the Ghost Train’s cobwebbed semi-darkness

we giggle at the goblins, ghosts and witches,

submit to tickly, bum-fluff kisses, but allow

no liberties or anything that messes up our hair.

Outside, the boys light up Park Drives, cupped

in apprentice palms, and offer us a second ride.

But it’s nearly half-past nine; we hurry off

with no intriguing footwear left behind.

That night I dream of vortices and flight

and speeding to Stratford on the pillion of a bike.

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