When I can step out onto Warren Street, teeming
with commuters’ intimate indiscretions,
and pick my way past overflowing bins
and through oily puddles,
when I can press coins
palm to grimy palm
to buy rugelach and coffee
steaming with others’ breath,
and walk through Fitzroy Square at sunrise
with toddlers and nannies
and old men with nowhere to go,
and hear the birds sing over
the roar of the Euston Road –
then I will kneel where the plane trees
shield me from heaven;
I will kneel and kiss the pavement,
despite the unflinching facades;
I will kneel and raise my furious fists,
open my throat,
and sing.
