Pariah

You remember walking the streets,
remember the hush, drizzle
spooling from limp branches.
The shade of your father
trudging behind at a distance
in a long dirty mac,
his grey face bunched in a scowl,
as if behind a waterfall.
The street artist, scuffling
to bag up his chalks
as the rain beat on his art,
turning a dribbling face
from the earth to sky, to you,
and how you said something
multicoloured and strange,
how you couldn't help or hurt
him in his spat on dreamland.

How that moment broke
the clouds, ivories tinkled,
how a blue, angelic hustler
sung ragtime waltz for change.
How a crazed African ran out
in a dazzling white thobe
and seemed to dance
across the busy road.
How the horns and sirens
broke like sugar glass
at his heel.