Dancing in Trafalgar Square

It’s a party in Trafalgar Square,

chaperoned by expectant Vermeers

in the National Gallery after

sponge cake from the crypt

at St. Martin’s in the Fields,

and a percussion band is rocking

on the stage, swaying the crowd

like reeds in the wind. We dance

around the column, the band is

that good and from Brooklyn,

of all places, as traffic swirls its way

from the Strand to the Mall,

but still we dance, risking

the inevitably disapproving stare

from the man atop the column.

Photograph: The band Red Barat playing at the Mayor of London’s party in Trafalgar Square, celebrating the end of the Paralympics and the Olympics, September 2012.