Highbury Park
In the woods at night men are fucking amongst the gorgeous piñatas of the rhododendrons, the avenue of cool limes. By day I walk my son down the secret pathways, smell the salt rime of sex on the wind, a condom glowing with blossomy cum, knotted and flung; I bury it gently under the moss with my boots. I envy them, these lovers, dark pines beneath their knees, the tarry earth opaline with the desire paths of snails, fallen feathers in the dirt like warnings. I know those days of aching to be touched by no-one who knows you. After he was born I wanted nothing but the wind to hold me, the soft-mouthed breeze coaxing my skin like the grass from a trampled field. How heavenly it seemed then, light shafting emerald through wounded leaves, the woods a church, we its worshippers, and all that sex - freed from love and duty - like being taken by the wind, swept from the cloistered rooms of your life, stripped and blown, then jilted dazzling in the arms of the trees.