How to go home

Go to London and feel the heavy grey skies and gritty black roads and the red lights in puddles and the buses that roar. Walk the West End for crispy duck then go to Waterstone’s on Piccadilly and dream on the fourth floor by the travel books. Buy a ticket from a machine and step on the train through whoosh-whoosh doors and avoid the chocolate on the blue fabric seats then creep behind gas holders and back gardens and so many trampolines in the rain. Speed up through the fields with the lonely trees and by the estuary with all that mud and reeds and white birds then through the tunnel to the station and the smell of magazines and burgers and coffee with milk in it. Ride in the car up the hill by the dusty mansions and the hedged school then turn right and notice the yellow concrete markers of childhood fire hydrants before gravel and plants and the white door and warmth and hugs and lemon cake and tuna bakes and love.