Robert Verdon, #74, Wakefield Gardens

in the back-years of my brain

plunking all the pianos in Bebarfalds

embarrassing my mother,

I see the trick-of-the-light man,

black coat, black beard,

trunk-still

at the edge of

Wakefield Gardens:

red, the path through the open park

antipode of the North Atlantic

follow the sinking Plimsoll line

shimmering like a bike bell

meeting death

or life

in leaden weather.