You climb into your parents’ bed,
sit between their yawns and sing
how London Bridge is falling down.
You tell them you were born in London
and there is another bridge in London
called Tower Bridge and that is your favourite
but you don’t think there’s a song about that
so you keeping singing about London Bridge
falling down. You ask how small you were
when you lived in London and your parents remember
a body the length of three Oyster Cards.
They remember eyes wider than a gap to mind
and a flat too small to hold all the love handed
to them by a St. George after seven blurred days.
“Oh no!” you say before running to your room
and returning with a stuffed Ben Big toy
taller than your time as a cockney.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘London Bridge’ by The Teskey Brothers.