With the excitement of a family abroad
lucky dipping from a dozen restaurants
they one by one sat into their places
sliding fingers down laminated choices
ahead of the waitresses pen and pad.

‘Do you have a fish only menu?’ asked
the mother of three identical daughters
keen to express the latest life choice fad
profiled in the forests of magazines
piled on staff and waiting room tables.

In the corner a mute son and brother
sat shredding fat with his teeth from
a pile of barbecued chicken wings
whilst the girls shot energetic glances
towards each more seasoned diner.

Those others, formally clinking glasses
above plates of salads and breads
held softly murmured conversations
contrasting with the vacuum cleaner noise
of straws hitting a cocktail’s end.

Couple by couple by foursome
the suited and booted paid and filed out
back home to movie hire, chilled wine,
drawn curtains and faint buzzing
kitchen appliances of white and shine.

Three drinks and crispy cod fajitas later
the outgoing, intimate relatives danced
along a bus journey back East,
the lad’s head resting against a window
out to roads of the black cabbed elite.

Ashes To Ashes is playing from the other room,
part of a greatest hits affair.
It’s consolidated and cheaper for now,
as I log in to internet banking, again,
not that I’d ever forget the balance, slants,
like I did Reno’s Pizza Place, old Barnet
at the foot of a steep hill until
yesterday’s business trip home sped past
dragging cabin day dreams of old neighbours,
school faces and bus stops, a short itch from
where I am now, five years on from smokey
car park evenings,
the long, slow, dim Saturday checkout shifts,
church spires turned commerce and
distant fields sectioning concrete and sky,
tempting me to spend a day re-tredding history
like I’m seventy and dying, perhaps for belonging,
whilst I’m not, just ticking towards tonight’s plan,
thinking a trip down Mays Lane will have better impact
if I first live further away, entirely forgetful of its bumps.