From Goodge Street

Take a left then.
Turn your back on Smirke’s Greece and Egypt,
from where Rimbaud stole ink and fire
to afford Charlotte and the life of a king’s bastard.
The grey drinks the weekend’s piss
from under plane trees’ beautiful leprosy.
Tonight the sky will fill;
clouds like Guinness
spilling
rising settling upwards
into the unblinking cyclopean stare
holding in its watch
the stars and gutters of Charlotte Street.

Kate Wise