# Tracks

through market-less Deptford, 
the A2 wind scudding cloud,
to a silver bark start at Queens Road Peckham
following a tree green lines over sunken adapting tracks,
a hidden path rattling rooftops and tunnels,
past Nazareth Garden arguments 
and a big thumbs up from a lorry driver
caught on camera, Denmark Hill.

The green line shakes and
buckles above ground,
into arches, out of reach, dissapearing
down streets which start to close,
trapping echoes, the forgotten familiar rising
unwanted from drains and playgrounds,
a needle sharp pattern of past
glimpsed in corners, red brick perspectives,

(confusion in Angel Town,
Brixton Market arguments,
guilty lovers rolling down
a daily strewn mound,
near Clapham),

terraces terraces terraces
which come together, the exits lost,
the route obscured, tracing some flowing artery
round this London ring I'd thought clotted,
invisible and claustrophobic
until the Thames opens up,
a release, a relief

from this slight personal thread
twined through a fabric stitching
faces shapes buildings figures paths,
immeasurable faint trails
overgrown verges lost within this clear route.

Then polished slate-wiped-clean Imperial Wharf,
a rusting gas-holder breathing into
houses, apartments,
dead ends cobbles of gated Chelsea,
frayed memory - a motorbike
crashed in confusion of childbirth, rising unhurt,
a bleak roof garden looking down
on Shepherds Bush, framed by statues,

then torn out into urgent immediacy
on a dual carriageway -
Westfield's elongated pastel wall
shouting speed speed speed by
dust and dirt and thundering lorries,
to the Regents canal's disappearing calm
as rail and road's spaghetti to Willesden junction,
the west point of this canvas.

Time for a sandwich.