Quinton Street a pied a terre

       

Quinton Street was mainly
an address for mail,
so my parents needn't know
I 'lived in sin' at Vulture Street.
I had my own room
in a flat with someone
more adept at sinning,
hopelessly entangled with two
charming men, each of them
alternately pretending
there was only one.

My undergraduate copain
would read voraciously by day,
though not the textbooks
mandatory for subjects
she was bound to fail.
At weekends she would ride
her Harley Davidson
to see her folks,
cat slung in a pillowcase
as pillion.

I envied her such sang froid
and audacity, her thigh-length braid.
On nights when I stayed there alone
a neon sign reflected on a blank wall
blinked a metaphor
for psychic desolation.

There was a communal bath,
best avoided after dark.
Without the flatmate, all was stark,
the silences grew menacing,
and random thoughts would raise
a mindless din.

I shan't go there again...

*

From ‘The Book of Lost Addresses’