Hoodies All Summer

The peacock crows
Head cocked at the window
Body twisted facing sun

Can memories be excavated
in buildings still standing
When lost lives are the rubble

In a dream I walk the high street
skin empty bar black bottoms
flailing at the slight pick up of breeze
pockets hanging drooped

Maybe as a surrender to hungry eyes
Maybe as a prayer to a silent God

I

shelter
for Kunta Kinte cranium
arched nape
stone rubbed smooth
magnet for jovial hands
slapping happy
stinging numbing
tears always choked

II

NW10 attire
declaration of belonging
mouth mimicking MCs
twisting tongue
to wear wagwans and bloods
tag reinvented by the week
blizzard today
icekid Monday
visors vision tunneled
to the girl's school down the toad
no game to spit
only soft poems
crammed in bars

III

flung on cape
suck your mum
the bat signal
racing to O2 stadium playgrounds
and after-school colosseums
armed with frail fists
charged with ego
dashed like pound coins
at studious heads
till a football flies in
and a new mission begins

IV

hoodies all summer
in unforgiving heat
punching up on black clad armour
sweat trickling through creased uniforms
leaving trails to chicken shops
bossman preheating orders
of 2 for 2s
KA cans chilling
for the cohort of boys
sat on fences
still choosing between masks of
sheep and wolves