The Charm of Friday Night

after David Berman

It all reminds me of what mum misses
from America – that smell in the streets of Boston
late at night after a summer day, when the pavement
has been baked, and you can walk home after making
love in a thin cotton dress. Heat you can rely on.

Or that night when I went to my favourite gay bar
and got on stage to answer questions about a
decade I don’t remember, so I put Monster Munch
on my fingers. And how we spent sunrise on the phone,
watching the city come back into Technicolor.

You know what I’m on about.

Tonight it occurs to me Jez Butterworth is the theatre,
and it’s nice to say this, when you’re almost sure,
and I see that critic who wrote the list of 100
books to read before you die, and said he didn’t “get
poetry”. Tonight he frowns, “it does
seem to be having a bit of a moment” but then
he’s accosted by a man with a novel.

Deciding to walk home, I see so many places whose
lit interiors spill beckoning fingers onto the
pavement, lighting the way back to Berlin.

I text my lover and say, we should move here. And
it’s certainly possible we will.

Now lean in, and I’ll show you something.

Somewhere in the future, I’m remembering today.
I’m remembering how I walked into a tiny, packed
room, on a hot night in our city, how my friend
got a standing ovation for his reading,

and how I said to DJ, let’s drink Red Stripes,
and how he turned to me, with his electric eyes,
and said, excellent.