close your eyes and feel the smog clear
as you descend shrinking into your boyhood shorts
and slow as cruising wings to your town

where a kola kube in a scoop for a paper bag
at the sweet shop is on your tongue

now throw a hand to the right – watch a road bend
for the runways – throw a hand to the left
and your road straightens towards Uxbridge,
the Venice of West London with its water docks

no one’s heard of your town
with its fragrance of apple hellos that pass through
each passer-by like a well-palmed handshake

the greengrocer has harvest rows of marrows, turnips
and squash gaudy as the Golden Temple
and sprouts all year round

a Wimpy with burgers
pushed down by a spatula on the hot sticky griddle,
knickerbocker glory the gloriest words you’d ever supped

then walk past Hollands whose art deco interior
has chrome and silver mirrors
reflecting this year’s fashions – modest fashions

here’s a haberdasher’s, angler’s, strong-named stores
such as Smith & Haynes, Armstrong Grigson
reliable as the red-top dailies
whose ink dabs the fingers black

black as the tricorn hat worn by the town crier
whose breath’s as menthol as a Fisherman’s Friend
while swinging a brass bell and shouting oyez!
to update the crowd on local news

meanwhile the sandwich-board that stares
ahead with THE END IS NIGH
is worn by a man with gargoyle eyes
whose head’s scary as Medusa
but you don’t cross the road – it’s just a straw-haired
pensioner in the doldrums of a scarecrow

the pet shop with the tortoise who shuffles
on sawdust to crouched-kiddie cooing
while an iguana looks on from a shelf

always the fear of a loose toothy-dog round the bend
come from abroad with rabies

the smell of a newly laid road hovers in the hairnet
from an old woman’s Lambert & Butler
which she holds with tanned fingertips
her backdrop’s a billboard with a smoking cowboy

as a Leyland car the colour of fudge is behind
a three-wheeler Reliant Robin –
wasn’t there always a motorbike with a sidecar
for a seated sweetheart

talking of bikes – that bringer of bad news,
the telegram man parking up outside
makes you lose the lingering sugars of your kola kube

you and your friends were born in 1966 –
your mums and dads seem really old
in their mid-twenties – you walk past their houses
and though it’s the year of Ziggy Stardust

they’re keeping stylus to vinyl for Bill Haley, Buddy Holly,
Gene Vincent, the Killer, the King
all strung and sprung like whippets
good golly, Miss Molly, roll over Beethoven

and your own house – its façade is quite unique
with bricks that are wedding red
and mortar white as fondant,
a house that has the look of a bride all year round

peeking down the roads off the Grand Union Canal
you spy factories – so many of them
the colour of uncut cobs on silver trays in the bakery

workers clocking on to the clopping metronome
made by a horse and cart, a horse whose eyes
are plated with leather saucers

your gran runs out to bag the dung
as a fuss of steam rises behind the large flat call
from behind a cap – raaag’n’bone!

the library with microfiche for extracting information,
a plastic sheet over which is lit a big green eye,
your loan record stamped on a small card
in a box – the librarian riffles through for your surname
as you inhale the fragrance of vanilla

your primary school in cool September
by St Matthew’s Church – what’s that left out
past the gates, a box of kittens curled into sleep

as you carry a satchel with its new bronze
pencil case whose lifted lid is clean as a mirror
in which your face shines like a tinsel Jesus

your town, reimagined after the wars,
has three-channelled tellies under strict hours
like the shops that shut by half five
and close all Saturday afternoon for footie and pools
and close all Sunday roast for family gatherings

your town of Teddy Boys and Tammy
feels a rainbow away from the birth of
the cappuccino, the national curriculum

Pac-Man and Amstrad