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The Key to the Kingdom

By Philip Gross Philip Gross

It's not exile, homes and families behind

us, where we meet. It happens anywhere,

now: a stateless

state of no name, quietly seceding

from the crumbling empires round us,

without stamps or Eurovision entries.

No-one does it with a rough guide in a week.

You inhabit it

or nothing. Like this: in a pavement cafe

you blink and you seem to surprise them,

the crowd, all its separate faces at once,

coming out of solution like crystals,

like a rush of starlings

or the breeze that lifts the canvas awning

now and dents your cappuccino froth

with a crisp little sound. And that's it:

between breaths, just between you and me

as if; yes,

QED. You are received. This is

the freedom of the city, and the key

to the kingdom, and its borders ripple

outwards like a frill of breaking wave

onto flat sand,

a wavering line already fading leaving

spume-flecks high and dry,

a prickling on your palm; you're five

years old, looking up at the whole sea,

unsure:

will you laugh or cry?

Source: Poetry (October 2001).

Biography

Philip Gross lives in Bristol, England and teaches creative writing part-time at Bath Spa University College. He won the National Poetry Competition in 1982 and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize in 1998. A number of his seven collections of poetry, including The Wasting Game (Bloodaxe), have been recommended by the Poetry Book Society.

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