Three on the roof in the rain.
Coffee and a soggy newspaper.
Little rivulets run by the kerb
like animal tails, and baby
clothes hang along cast iron rails.
A shop attendant puffs on a vape
and the days wear an unfamiliar shape.
They are growing. Soon, they will
inundate their own wardrobes,
the limbs of the hours all stretched
out in this sodden doll’s house.
The three descend to drumming.
The tourists traipse in and out
of the coffee shops. This whole place
is dense with the weight
of those convulsing pipes and
the old metaphors underground.
A hatchback goes past with a lip
of snow on the bottom of its windscreen
and we slowly file off to rest
and warm our cold hands and feet.