Vernon Square
They’ve posed themselves in favoured spots
Around this dour, abortive square
That sits beside the King’s Cross Road:
An innocence of London drunks.
One stammers helplessly in sleep
Then coughs and gurks; one makes to sing,
His voice a sort of half-formed fart;
A third stares out a traffic sign.
All in their different ways engaged
In gently teasing nothingness.
The early sunlight holds them now;
As morning thickens they’ll move on.
Ian Heffernan was born in 1965 and grew up just outside London, where he still lives. He studied at UCL and SOAS. He works with the homeless.