Lewisham
remains an obscure slab of London
Both
south and east it is preserved
In
both poverty and anonymity
But
it's market is the sweetest cherry of the crop
Greenwich,
organic and gentrified
Is
pretty and curious but hardly practical
It
lives still, in the shadow of the royal palace
And
is alien to the mercantile soul of London
Catford
recedes into the sad squalor
Of
the half urban and half suburban
Where
even the presence of its giant cat
Cannot
evoke the magic of Whittington's city
Bromley's
market emerges as a glade
Amid
the quiet forest of suburbia
Transmuting
London's commercial energy
Into
the weather proof horror of the mall
But
here at the nub of Lewisham's life
I
sated my new wife's ardour for fresh fruit,
And
scoured bright stalls for the vegetables
Which
stoked the passions of our love.