It’s quickly coming back, memory’s been jolted:

Virgin Queen, Stonehenge, Tower of London,

all dumped when strong-armed into sciences.

My classmates mucked around on the coach ride home.

But I carried it all with me: beheaded wives, Druids,

battles re-enacted in those dreary autumn skies.

Though no one resembled me – until now.

Somewhere, out there, in this great unknown ether.

This history, this country – could it really be mine?

‘I’m going to travel with you,’ Stanley whispered, as he snuggled down beside Jessie, wrapping her up in his arms.

‘You already have done,’ came the reply, but by then he too had fallen asleep.

Grief fills up the room of my absent father.

Took leave of absence in his last years,

the woman he belonged to – gone.

He felt he never, ever belonged – here

was black Lucy in Elizabeth’s England

a dream witnessed by your son

whose dreams had been deferred

in deference to you – Father?

I could smell her terrible breath, so close,

touch coarse hair, woven

like Pearline’s in parched photographs,

no pomade to soften, then, softening

your passing for there is more of life

in death than I supposed. Father,

I have found a fiery woman of whom

you would not approve, desperate

to escape, as you could not escape

yourself, and stirring all around

are whispers, winds, are ethereal beings,

who might just make me whole.

Stanley decided to do some research, a rather pretentious term, he admitted, for such amateurish rooting about in the library. When he discovered that a Lucy Negro really had existed in sixteenth-century London and that she used to trade outside the Swan in Turnbull Street, he sat down at the rectangular communal desk replete with the day’s newspapers, scribbling students and tramps pretending not to fall asleep, where he moved a combination of faith, fact and disbelief back and forth in his mind, like a game of high-speed table tennis.

Fifty-one Days in Blackheath

S beef casserole with black lingerie
lipstick warhols my cheeks
welcome home, banker-boy

J marinating Stanley
massage flank, shank (spank)
and oh that feather-less chest

S on the 6th day, a scummy bath
j’accustory finger – suctioned off
late for work (a first)

J hootchy-kootchy, cha-cha, boogaloo
each touch leads to double-shuffle
bathroom, sitting room, bog (bed)

S dramatics of a prima donna
when your father dies
your needs become primal again

J cache of champagne
tomorrow is today for Crissakes
let’s celebrate (virgin crystal flutes)

S puddle of crumpled clothes
I crush silk panties
inhale indecent scent

J filing boxes under bed
bills, bank statements, investments
not really prying, just investigating

S Dynasty versus Jacques Cousteau
she sits on remote control
tickle, relinquish, conquest

J he requested night alone
dialled my digits at midnight
taxi-take, receipt-keep

S mating on Blackheath common
criss-cross roads, searchlight car beams
lord, my merry days!

J day 46 – wine on white sofa
just like menstrual spots
rushed to salt it up, don’t worry (me, speechless)

S skin of sun-drenched petals
enfolds me at dark
releases me at dawn