London Fire Watcher

I walk the cobblestones of Queen Victoria
Street, rubbing the black soot from my
bloodshot eyes while whisking away
snow-like flakes from my flat cap.
A stench claims the road beside me
under a souring color of gaslight
that flames a golden fire, not yet pinched
by the lamplighter’s snuffer. The bomb’s
rubble crunches under my shoes,
as my ankles stir thick grey fog
working hard to conceal a crater
that’s too big to hide. The tea shop
is a jigsaw pile of burnt bricks,
next to the Meadows’ house,
a two-story pile of hissing embers
still cooking all within. One day the
bomb crater will moan under the weight
of a new post office and the tube
that served so many will be a tour-relic
serving a coterie of crying ghosts.