The city is light in darkest night with warm spots to be found, if you know where to look. Delilah showed me her favourite place to rest. Behind a wall and out of general sight, but covered by an all seeing eye as a hope of protection. Small hope, scant hope, but hope all the same.
And now Delilah, whose kiss was warm and moist, who hesitated at first, but kissed with passion freed, oh, Delilah, where are you?
Have you found shelter, a roof of your own, or did you flee in fear of more than conversation and cuddles and kisses in the open darkness of night?
People look away, people don’t see, don’t engage, don’t offer human contact for fear whatever has taken these people to there is communicable, a blight passed by compassion.
I saw Delilah, and Kieth, and Ian. I skinned my knuckles on a ragged wall as I stooped to sit and commune with these people who are me, and not me, and all of us but for circumstance.
Preacher, teacher, long term truth seeker with the help of drugs legal and illicit. They tell me their histories and it takes only generous naivety to accept the veracity of their tales, while cautious wisdom doubts the truth of details contained therein.
We talk until the hours are small, until Ian and Keith heed a call, unheard, to depart and find a spot they claim is the best for sleep. Delilah looked to be going as well, but tarried too long and soon they were gone, swallowed by empty streets and suddenly concern makes itself felt.
‘You should join them,’ I say ‘I’ll help you find them.’
‘Do you want me to go’
‘Do you want to?’
A snaggle tooth smile and a knee shifted to rest on my thigh as she turns into my shoulder and says, ‘I’m comfy here.’
I slipped an arm around you Delilah, held tight, and asked what your plans for the night and day may hold.
‘I exist.’
And, Delilah, words have never made me so cold. To exist and hope for only a safe place to curl and sleep safe is a desire so small I weep, wipe away a tear, and kiss your brow and you don’t know why because you snuggle against my chest like I’m a teddy bear on a comfy bed, somewhere safe to rest your head.
‘Tell me what comes ahead,’ I say.
‘Sleep, breakfast at the mission-‘
‘No, next, when you’re no longer on the street.’
And Delilah, you straightened up to look me in the eye. ‘A home, a place to call my own, somewhere we could do this.’
And I lean down into the kiss, to middle of the night bliss.
Your lips part so tenderly and for a time I forget we sit on a city street. When you sigh, and lean away, I squeeze your shoulders and watch as, with eyes still closed, you lick your lips as if to taste all the things you wish were real.
The never silent city increases its noise to remind us of our place. Street cleaning machines and delivery trucks violate the idea of a gentle dawn. Occasional overnight buses pick up their pace and become the early morning service, while the rumble of the underground is felt for the first time in the day.
‘If we head to the mission, we can be early in the queue for breakfast,’ Delilah says.
I look at my watch and count the hours to the flight that was early enough to make a few hours in a hotel more trouble than benefit.
‘I have to be somewhere,’ I say, ‘a place to go. But I’ll walk you there.’
But we are going in different directions and, when I look back after a dozen yards, Delilah, you were already gone.
Poem by stuartcturnbull, picture from ales kartal on Pixabay
This poem is one written over the summer of 2022. It is part of a suite of poems that considers UK history and life from roughly the end of the Second World War through to an unknown future.
The suite's title is from the opening line of the fourth stanza in William Blake's 1808 poem Jerusalem.