MY FATHER'S FLAT Poem by James Harpur

Tugging apart the curtains every day
He always saw, three stories up, a grand
Sweep of the Thames, the trees of Battersea

And, squatting there, the Japanese pagoda -
Inflaming, a parody of a bandstand,
Its four sides flaunting a golden Buddha.

It glowed like a lantern near the glitzy braid
Of Albert Bridge at night.
If he had crossed
The river he might have heard Renounce the world
Escape the gilded lips or seen Gautama lying
In mortal sleep, his face relaxed, his flesh released;
Even in death, teaching the art of dying.

At night, across the river two golden eyes burn
Into the heavy velvet of the curtain.