hugging Lauren at WOMAD (1990)

hugging Lauren at WOMAD (1990)

 

Lauren wandered the showground

willing herself into another time,

another place, best of all home

stroking Beefheart the cat

 

she lingered outside a marquee

half-dancing, half-turning

to a Sufi qawwali

 

her rapture was irrupted

by a vaguely-familiar face,

 

‘I didn’t expect to see you here’

‘me neither’

‘looks like you need a hug’

‘I effin’ do’

 

half-strangers embracing

a moment, a minute, an hour,

 

he melted into the crowd

wiping his eyes

and thinking of Beefstah

Lauren wiped hers

 

twenty summers after - London;

 

he stepped from the noisy kitchen

of a party in Richmond

into a postage stamp garden

where Lauren stood alone

mulling the world's end - and her own...

 

‘I didn’t expect to see you here’

‘me neither’

‘looks like you need a hug’

‘I effin’ do’

 

Lauren stubbed her cigarette

spread inviting arms

 

they embraced

a moment, a minute, an hour,

still strangers

 

on the bank of the Thames again,

forlorn on a carpet of festival flotsam.