Morning
One house
next
next again
pert green
lawn
white garage
sprinkler muted
nothing
out of order no
thing
untoward
wraparound sound, sigh
of fridge door
city tightening
the mountains
seem not to move
have texture
pavement empty, road adrift, the car
shining safely
the neighbour hood coming to a slow
coming to a rolling
boil
No
The police stations seamless, riveted
and sealed, foreign as spacecrafts; still
the place grows around them. Prams like
hot-wired cars lie empty on the grass;
past tricolour kerbstones girls push
at invisible winds; sky the colour of armour
and the air muscular with battle.
The slow quotidian burrs in these hives
of negativity. King Billy and Princess Di
rule their dystopia of Rangers clubs and chip shops
in the here and now, the present tense
with counterflow, facing time head-on
as walls face winds, coasts face off the seas,
and lose so slowly it feels like winning.
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