Old Moonshine

A robin perches on a yellow deckchair
among the vivid scruffy lawn
with scattered leaves, dark flowers
the kind you would accidentally crush
as a child, and mourn in fragrance,
clothes pegs jangling like pulled-out teeth
on a weatherbeaten line, another garden
in the humid evening, in New Cross

The robin darts through the brambles,
skips the wilted geraniums that gingerly
press the ground in hope of a storm,
sends out of its origami mouth
fluting yips, babyish punctuation
that floats into the trees above,
where the jangling minds of London
lodge their green undying memories

They are drunk on champagne now,
two houses over, roasting meat, laughing
in the smoke as they grow lightheaded,
gross and happy they are England's princes,
bathing in the steamy air with largesse,
cheesy noses, kissing, dancing to the Duke,
their hearts like robins fluttering inside
the shady houses of their bodies

The evening wavers with them,
at the buffet table, one hand halfway
inside its wallet, half-soused on wine,
losing itself in a beard of dusky clouds,
in the trees that sap it for their fruit,
as someone is singing far away
an old jazz song darting birdlike on the air,
the earth turns, the dark flowers turn.