The wet streets of the night walking up Hatton Garden
The eyes in the darkness spin like wheels.
The cold squid sun running up Eyre Street Hill
The bright blot of the moon seeping, bleeding over Farringdon Bridge
The grey wet single broken line of the street.
Prince Albert doffs his cap to the sunrise
The Victorians are coming on the clouds.
The Princes stony, hunched back facing the east is full of gratitude.
Rain fills the early morning, and each drop is a Bethlehem melody.
The bare necks of the dummies in the jewellery shops,
The headless white dummies bereft of pearls
Like blanched shell-less snails in the window, alert for predators.
The fox thinking like a tin drum,
Scarpering, stopping, watching, and vanishing
2004