Presto

All of a sudden, the town sort of changed, As though the years had heaped all their dust in one go, Reshaping the atmosphere and structure, Erecting a darker, more feral architecture. I sat on a bench in the square with a Diet Coke, A Café Crème silently smouldered in my fingers, And the ambience bristled, dangerous sensations Tingling playfully along my gooseflesh arms. When I was a kid, I remembered, it had felt safe, Sure it looked crab-apple old, but solid; Now slightly surreal – a Kebab Shop, a Cost Cutter, Peddled addictions in the stead of grocers and cafes. And the windows, once lit, once bright and wide, Inviting day and night casual window shoppers; Wares now squirreled away, shut behind steel and mesh, Blinded produce, unless you have X-Ray eyes. A car blazed past, peeling paint, hubcaps spraying rain, The driver wore a reversed baseball cap, His boombox roared culture of nine-thousand miles distant: “Yo, mutha, today you die – rat-at-at-tat – today you die…!” I smoked and drank coke and felt my childhood expire, It had been years since I sat beside the Great War Cenotaph, Yet the life that had died so very long ago for me, Felt as though it had suddenly passed just then.