Boat Poets: I Remember Your Face by Tatenda Naomi Matsvai

I remember your face by Tatenda Naomi Matsvai

Well over this,

listen,

over this side

where the jetties used to be a station

big on the right hand side with the white and red brick

sits

bricked up now by

glass and balcony new builds

jutting

towards thames

you see that

used to be our park

turned

carpark

where citrons swing doors shut

we would

drive on,

tucked into tented tarpaulin, legs

dangling

from the back of dads truck

as we boarded ferry seatbelt less

now board by foot,

carry memories of what was lost

dock to dock

used to

catch

the smell of diesel and engines below deck when ferry was

The gordon – when egg shell white cabins

cut the ferry wide

open

We’d sit in guts see

its belly full of pistons pumping steam into clouds

now

belly sealed shut

ferries pistons turned

clean humm,

electric engine faint beneath feet

used to

catch

curry and gunpowder dancing from the docks

between bustle of boaties

anchored full of dance

when

docked tea parties

would tremble wind with trumpet,

when

arsenal still churned out arms

now

can’t get the breeze to smell more than salt

North Dock hasn’t carried a note

since

swimming pool sprung up in woolwich

see those clutching floaties to chest

going across to it

the ferry now - the Vera Lynn

brings memories across with it

see

change, cast shadows on the shoreline

Scrunch my eyes hard enough see

old woolwich oscillating

north and south

along the new engine humm and salt air

Saturdays under tarpaulin dance with faint notes of what is gone.