London/Pt.2

I am more alive than yesterday. An ex-pat wraith, aimless on the morning streets seeking sun and affirmation while stopping at every church that’s older than my country for photographic evidence of a religion I could lean on--hoping to see the face of god in the soft moss; a miracle beyond mortality and pareidolia. This is a dream within a dream, and the Green Man extends a hand, offering remembrance of my own face in the moss for posterity. I have been here and will always be here in this house-body birthright. I am in your memories in a different light if you knew me at all—my face in a photo, my face on the wall. An obvious plea for my fantasy of transient tomes and fear of permanent bones. Two luxuries that only daydreams can afford, and lovers understand.

I’ve known myself in wandering, I’ve known the city in tryst; twenty-four thousand steps and sweet on London. Sipping my way through peaky architecture and I saw crooked beams in a crooked ceiling holding wavy glass in a crooked window at St Martins. Woozy with the choir, loving the holy terroir knowing I can only appreciate this grace at close range for a few minutes to preserve in an anthology of epithets about churches I didn’t belong in.
I went to the Deadhouse at Somerset, but the dead wouldn’t have me for fear of security. I went to the café in the crypt under the church, but the idea ate bitterly at the reality of children crying prosaic grievances at bored parents (complete with ads!) leaving no room for brooding in the basement of saints.

Time is softer at night. Bordeaux in my bedroom, soju in the street, the ghost of Nell Gwynne poured Guinness perfectly under red lamps, yet I am suspiciously sober despite my prerequisites.