5am on Portobello Road
Close the front door,
step out into the street
where litter clumps like fallen leaves.
A girl shivers beneath an awning –
pale skin, Aphrodite’s eyes.
She reaches down to tie her shoelace.
Streetlights flicker dim memories
of a million lives which once played
out on these rain-slicked cobbles.
I pass an empty coffee shop and inside
I see myself at twenty-one,
longing to be held.