The sort of place I’ve learned to fear, along an ill-lit
inauspicious street, where OPEN LATE beams
garish red from one dank shop, which mainly sells
cheap whisky, rizlas, crisps that aren’t quite Pringles.
A house, mid-terrace. Curling paper sign, home-printed, leaching
fading ink says ROOMS. I glance over my shoulder, wondering
who might see me as I wend my way among the weeds
that nudge between the paving. Uncut grass draws damp
across my legs. The bell is broken, so I knock, and feel the paint-flecks
crumble under knuckles that, perhaps, are trembling
just a bit. The hinges creak. Pale eyes above the chain. What if they think
I’ve come for drugs, or some other extra the landlady might offer me
for cash? I shift, one foot, the other, I shouldn’t have come,
yet had to come. I ask: is there a child here? Regret it.
Maybe she’ll think I want to buy that, too. I wonder if I smell
cheap whisky on her breath, or if that’s just the odour of my prejudice.
The chain unhooks, the hall is narrow, dark, with clutter I can sense
but cannot see. I pass the numbered rooms, try not to breathe,
try not to touch, go through a kitchen. My high heels catch on peeling lino.
I push the beaded curtain, some beads missing. A lean-to, maybe?
One bare bulb, an ancient heater, blankets heaped, an aged futon.
And a woman, so young, yet her face speaks centuries. She looks up, smiles,
she knows I’ve come to see the child. My knees touch concrete,
chill and hard. I sob, and know that everything I’d learned
to think and thought I knew is wrong.