Locally

Forget the map

The church green
Let morning and evening
Cables and kerosene

Make their mosaic
Of local
Make scapes of familiarity
Repetition of scent
Repetition of sight
Repetition of memory.

Tessellating the High Road
With Kloveniersburgwal
With Rue Sous l'Eglise
With the High Road
With Bentley Rise
With the slate grey snakes of Lancashire
With the beach in Perth
Collected like classrooms
Memories of classrooms.

The dendrite linked streets

The bend, the taxi fleet
The station split and gapped

Like synapses

Electric axons

Reinforced with use
Cement meaning
Cement behaviour.

Cups of tea, cups of tea
I do not keep milk at home
But locally
That's different.

The carnation bush in the park

Again, the dog and his old man

The stairs in the dark
Alleys like the back of my hand
But not Spitalfields
Not Upper Street Post Office
Not the bridge by Markfield
Or even Dam Square
They are just along the line
Along the river from here
An inch on a map
Local, just across a synapse.