Marney Road, Clapham

the grey voice crackled over the PA like some old drunk clearing his throat in the dark, spitting out the names of places nobody really believed in anymore. platform three, homeward bound, cold enough to crack. five more inches had fallen in the night and had gone to slush, working its way into the holes of my shoes, freezing my toes solid, my socks soaked through.

I got a Starbucks, four quid for hot brown water, the steam crawling up to thaw the ice in my tear ducts. I’d come off the bus from Clapham after a night with a woman beautiful enough to make you hate yourself — talking shit until the sun got embarrassed and showed up. her hands had been soft, soft like something you don’t get to keep.

across the tracks stood Pincho’s, that cheap joint with the red-green neon coughing and spitting in the wet air, buzzing off the damp wires. waiters slung coffee and hot chocolate to people sucking cigarettes, the smoke folding into the fog, London breathing its usual cold against the skin.

I kept seeing her smile, those eyes that looked at me like I wasn’t already half a corpse. one night of being seen like that, and now the platform, the slush, the burnt taste of yesterday still in my mouth. the train was late. it always was. and she was getting further away by the minute — not gone, just going, the way the warm always goes.

she saw me human
for one night; now the slush, the fog,
the long way home.