Longing for Autumn

Lying on the grass in Pavilion Gardens heat, thinking of unwritten books and the quiet corners of unknown cities.
Men in pubs waiting for the football, and I scan the shelves of second hand books in charity shops.
Green tables and instant coffees, old women smoking cigarettes and foreign students easing into midday sleep.
Fragments of the sea, glass-liquid slashes between buildings.
Autumn seems so far away here, and yet I feel it, biding its time down curving alleys no-one walks, in the unrented backrooms of bedsit houses, among the dust and unslept-in beds covered with a sheet and nothing more.
Windows remember. Windows remember the raindrops against their panes in quiet October mornings, where the air smells of smoke and memories.
And I remember too, and in this midsummer heat, I feel autumn drawing near.