A Walk With Father -- Prose Poem

He leads me through East London, docks, pubs and stray dogs, the Thames lapping at low clouds. We find the second-hand player in a street where the shops are dusty holes under viaducts. Carrying the Dansette portable record player in it hard Bakelite box, lifting it by its leatherette handle, and me, small for my age, but wanting so much to lug it all the way. The plastic cuts my fingers, sharp corners bark my shins. Father talks of his life here, the blackouts and bombs, rationing, and the bloody Saturday night street fights. Trudging on, he whistles a tunes from a song-book of dead crooners. That evening sitting together with Sinatra, watching the dark blue Capitol label spiral and blur, hearing the unseen belt under the bobbing needle as it chewed vinyl - reliving the clunk-clunk of boots pushing back fog-muted miles. Years later, finding in my mother's attic that same player; lifting the machine, weighing its lightness, wondering how those old roads are now crushed under tower blocks, and father’s grave moved out of grimy graveyards two times, to accommodate luxury condominiums for financiers and rap artists.