What am I doing here, I was thinking
when history turned the corner,
bit glinting, reins contorting,
and I faced the faceless driver.

I’d just stepped out alone for air
under greasy lights of gastro pubs,
anxious after lockdown years.
That was when I heard the hooves.

His eyes were closed as if to say,
this street’s the same:
boutiques and bars with bad IPA
where there used to be shebeens,

and if not for the tanning pits,
the neighbourhood’s best trade,
vats sunk with carcasses,
then they named it for the plague.

Time spun with the coachman’s wheels,
cutting through what might’ve been
water mixed with petrol but was really
water mixed with lye and ash and in

the puddle the alley looked full of people
and my face still as drying leather.
Then the horse’s eyes, two brutal opals.
Only then did I remember.