Southwark Solstice

At last the setting has begun – a jet-stream hangs like a chalk mark boasting: one to the sun. Midsummer. Night descends – gently, certainly – through gold and candy peach to light-less lapiz depths, but I am not scared. Traces of jasmine, fried chicken, idle rose and honey-suckles on hot tarmac and the soles of my shoes lick, stick, linger on the pavement. Translucent seed heads bank and shine and sway and serenade the murmurs of young lovers as they skim and roll along the limestone town hall walls. Beyond traffic, the cellophane and flowers bristle on a railing for the face on a t-shirt hung by a mother’s mourning. The electric moons of street-lamps rise again and all that she can do is mouth mute warnings and rewind, replay and fail to erase that doom of a day. Please God. Not him. Please no. Oh God. And the whisper of a boy’s last breath escapes from the landing of a lonely, acrid stairwell: there is truth and there are rumours but I don’t feel scared.