Royal Miles

Cars angstrom up Abbeyhill, horserace hats bobbing towards
Holyrood Palace with modular suits and kilts. Today’s event is
royal or political just as grace and water are. A car lets a harried taxi
driver out, bestowing the former, while a shop called ‘Return of the
Mac’ advertises sweatshop tartan. And still the beauty of stones and
sash windows, six panelled like the abs of the actor who has a house
nearby and pays tax in fully legal ways. The sky threatens rain and
weather discourse, and I eschew the pub for America like my Irish
ancestors. My America is plundering the other americas for their
coffee beans but I enjoy the seat, peering at ‘Ye Olde Christmas
Shoppe’ through a July fug broken only by steak-bake fumes from
a Greggs van. We go to the polls in two days and the image of
removing soggy pastry past all use and consumption feels too
benign. If the palace walls should fall, water dry up, stone fissure
and windows fall; if the actor’s smile seems only naked-smug, and
all Americas reach for each other; as Christmas becomes neither
here nor there, then or now; if the secular holds and Greggs
crumbles, may we yet find grace beyond spasm of trafficked
generosity. As someone clears their throat in Holyroodhouse, the
taxi driver escapes Abbeyhill and reminds himself to renew his tax.