But for the grace: an eye for pretty things,
royal blue blooms in window-boxes, tubs.
They huddle on a lintel, eat their day
their loud bonhomie stinks, their bodies high
don't notice what across the pavement crawls
chasing the shade, the interregnum, that
the bottles end, black nails scratch broken light.

One brutish good-looking, just lording it,
Mediterranean tan, speedwell eyes;
beside an also-ran in any walk,
the third man, I didn't see, eyes biting dust.
All day nasties and pip of their tone
shorten against the clean and blurring panes
of houses owned or multi-occupied.


Little Echo

Tin soldier gait opens his limbs,
...