Hope's Eve

Dirty old river
must you keep rolling
beneath a setting sun
for the boy who waits.

Mod suited, Chelsea booted
outside the Friday night hum
of trains traversing this way, 
                              and trains conversing that way.

He knows these arteries.
The tides and the tracks 
of London’s bloodlines.
He can count the pulsed veins.

As he stands, he is so nervous
that he puffs on two Strand 
cigarettes, sucks on a Trebor
mint and considers his tie. 

Then again, 
considers his tie.

When she finally appears
on the station steps, French
cropped, Mary Quant propped,
she is determined, if a little shy.

Her first step
is in monochrome,
her second sepia, 
her third Technicolour,
her fourth a kissed embrace
that makes the faces
of Big Ben blush to a bow.

The jealous flower shop girls
of Waterloo scatter as if petals
to their tidy cul-de-sacs of Kennington
where they weep into petticoats
with a lonesome weekend swoon.
Their moments will surely come.

Though not tonight. 
This Friday night it is someone
else’s scent of summer.

Tonight, it is the 30th July 1966. 
Hope’s Eve.
 
Tomorrow, a Russian linesman
will wink at Bobby Moore launching 
Jules Rimet into a skidding,
wondrous, Wembley sky.

Harold Wilson of Huddersfield
will finger his pipe and smile at it all.

But right here, now. 
Inside this pub underneath 
the cooling railway arches, 
over pints of Watney’s Pale Ale
and chipped glasses of Babycham –
Terry and Julie sparkle each other’s
eyes for the very first time.

Later, they will walk that river.
They will talk in tongues.