There are shadows on the
northern side of the buildings,
in cold, quiet January,
cooling distended cut-outs,
as the light streams past sharp edges.
Hidden rivers run beneath cities
like little lost things,
satin gloves, diamond rings.
A ubiquitous tyre lies
half-submerged in dark-grey silt
in the Malago.
Attire: a dress for a wheel.
Now discarded, not fit for function
dumped twenty feet
along from the junction
of the river and St John’s Lane,
sitting there like so many other outfits:
a sock impaled on a railing,
a soiled jumper draped on a gate
next to a plastic bag,
the sun hugging the frame
of an unfinished block of flats
like a jacket. And all the Sunday strollers
in their Sunday clothes –
worn, fresh, tatty, borrowed, new, old –
waiting for the warmth
of something that hasn’t happened yet
of someone they haven’t met,
walking in cold, quiet January
watching the terraces roll
over Pylle Hill like a spine.