Our Father, Who art in Hendon

by Momtaza Mehri

In the car park, there are old men crying.

They are holding onto one another like poplars.

You tumble like them, like freshwater,

from the coach station. Leave the greens of Golders

behind you. You are back where it begins.

Temple Fortune. Gospel Oak.

The names are holy but the streets are far from that.

Towns with prayers in their pockets, a hum at the back

of their throats. A hand span between North and West,

the stretch of a limb, the arch of hills, to bring forth

an ache from calves, weigh upon our paths.

From Mills to Primroses, we wear geography on our skins.

A tally of belonging.

The dreamers forget but the North remembers.

Its nightshade kiss. Lips Brent-blue as the base of a flame. The spiced scent of black beans rising

like incense from the market. Amy’s statue looming over, unimpressed as ever. Hand on hip, a rose the colour

of a wound nestled in her beehive.

Her stone smirk a shared secret.

The Beast of Barnet. They said we were lying.

An escaped big cat roaming Cricklewood streets.

Round here, we deal in myths & half-truths.

Sometimes the best place for a myth is London Zoo.

Your footfall is a procession of history.

Trace the familiar womb of 98 to Russell Square.

This is what forgiveness smells like. Roll the names

of new shops & faces under your tongue.

Change stings the buds. A kind of back-handed love.

It’s a test with no correct answer.

We are always one priority seat away from disappearing.

We will lose it all to Foxtons & foxes,

these amber-tailed warnings of what’s come.

Where mods once stalked, the moss now grows.

Edgware Road’s Grape & Mint layali will dissolve

into the granulated loss of coffee grains.

We leave or we are left behind.

But what is ours will always be ours.

The river’s heart line across your palms.

An artery awash with stories.

I wish for you nothing but this.

The kind of inheritance you deserve.

The beauty of impermanence.

The quiet love of men in internet cafes.

The murmur of launderettes.

Schoolchildren staking their claims over the top decks

of buses, their diamanté earrings glinting

like a conquistador’s helmet.

Make your slow diasporas through Neasden narrow lanes,

steal the night’s milk & drag yourself northwards

sure as a needle’s compass.

These parts aren’t what they used to be.

But neither are you.