Branko Manojlovic (2.26.06)

London Us in Please

London us in please
with your crumbled Bloomsbury chimneys and tepid radiators
so our blood can curdle up at the sight of Hampstead haze, jumpy
squirrels and new men pushing perambulators. London us in
will you through your expansion rational or otherwise, your rental vans,
flats, your churches where white folk kneel where negro
sisters clap 'Sweet Georgia', pews on fire on a tearful Sunday. It is
at this closing business hour, by the two-pound-for-a-pound tray
of Berwick street blueberries, by the way of alleyway and peep show
cross-legged tarts, that we need you, London, to show us in, gently,
while the rest of us play it safe from the upper decks, suburb-bound.
Don’t forget also us the non-invitees, volunteers, usher us all in through
your splendidly denuded lawns and gardens, into a Georgian mansion
where butlers, called Joseph or Swankin, arrange for the early spring
massacre of magnolia – yes, the good old magnolia
that has never tasted so toothsome.