13 | queensberry avenue

2004

I gathered my philosophies up in the fall, in an armful sweep
to wash like white laundry 
a pure congregation contaminated
with renegade red socks
and through that autumn I went walking
past the retro-painted Laundromat
that wrapped around the corner of Queensberry Avenue
in glove and coat weather on Sunday afternoons
it had the cleanest scent whenever I passed


like walking through a dark hallway into
a shaft of light, the aperture of an open door
this brilliance of aroma
past the dry cleaners with the one-side-faded Monet poster
of water lilies on a burnt sienna wall
where notes could be changed into palmed plastic bags
of twenty pence coins
past the new 24-hour store run by complimentary
Arabs, insomniac slaves
to the closing hours
of run-down local pubs
The Stanhope Arms
The Zetland Arms
The Hoop and Toy
 
past the French children who’d scream at the bell
under the brims of straw and ribbon-hats
at the school across our narrow street
and under the pillars
of rows and rows of white-washed brownstones
and by November
my mind was all stained
with the sanitary ambiguity
of pink