How to Win at King's Cross

The trick is to enter at Granary Square, to walk
the coloured tunnel that bends, round, ribbed and kindly,
and even though there is no part of me that does not hurt,
I can do this, I listen, listen, it’s Sunday morning
and all I can hear is the rumble of tunnels, I’ve blanked out
the sound of people who do not care. My name?
No, I won’t play that game. I’m old, old, old, and this is why
I hurt, this is why I play with ignorance, performance
as art, this is why I love Marina Abramovic, this
is why my daddy became a handsome Greek, my mother
a high-speed jig-saw, mad and honest, a spinster,
a pig, a thimble. The trick is to enter at Granary Square.

I’ve been here before, I’m aware of contradictions
but have to remember where to turn left/right, have to know
that this is the Northern ticket hall, look backwards,
remember signs and emotions, try not to hate him too much,
because this isn’t Russell Square, there are no relics here,
nobody hides or laughs at the poor, we’re far from Blackfriars,
can’t slip into plague pits or swim out to catch the current
between the ancient piers, but concentrate! Left, then right,
and keep looking back, and on your return don’t follow
the ‘way out’ signs to the right, turn left! That’s how you win
at Olympic poetry, that’s how I want you to hold me—
you don’t have to like me. That’s how you win your way
to the Regent’s canal, where a swan and four overgrown cygnets
are swimming at half the speed of gossip, quarter the speed of time,
‘just looking for friendship’ and doing well, no deaths
since Monday and no sexual contact. And me? I’ve won,
though I ache like Salcedo’s crack in the floor of the Tate
and all Bourgeois’ mothers have scuttled away.