Built in
I am still in here, despite the siege. Still here,
behind the maze of scaffolding and duckboards -
business almost as usual, though I daren't leave.
I watch the men through the drawn blind like TV,
as they paint over the rotting window frames,
drink tea from flasks, sandblast, dig up pipes outside.
I keep the windows locked, just in case - paranoid,
I hide the jewellery box. On cold days, they slither
about on the slats, four floors up - a precarious ballet.
Some nights, I like to haul myself through
the wet window with a steaming cup, and sway
on the scaffold, scaring myself. I can choose -
to look out over the rainy slates, streetlights, the stretch
of council yards, or plunge. (Cobbles wink in the alley
below, its discarded mattress a festering fall-breaker.)
But it will be gone soon, this crows' nest, climbing-frame
for drunks, this cage. They will come in the morning,
wake me early, and pack it away, whistling.
Under South Bridge
This is just one arch in an army
of many. Arthritic old lady of Edinburgh -
hunched over Cowgate, back bent
like a book-spine, like a toughened bow;
a sudden gap in the city's slack smile.
A bus swings through her like the tongue
of a bell, flinging peals of pigeons
into the cool air. A busker harvests her echo,
this bridge of sighs - slouching at the edge
of her boat-hull-black roar.
Stand in her rushing yawn yourself, or slide
between her jawbones in the tarmac's tread.
Graffiti - like a sandstone tattoo - taints
the upturned dish of dark: Fuck Westminster.
Jambos forever! SCOTIA! Poles Go Home.
