Isambard's Broken Cigar

Isambard’s Broken Cigar by Neil McCall

This city –
bell-towered over black water,
smoke-free cathedrals of beer and steam
showily repenting their slave wharves-
this foxy city
can put a positive spin
on graduate girls from Gloucestershire
trained in rites of repossession
crouching, pretty in cheap cotton,
as swans beak their lunchtime crusts.

Drink up, m’dear,
we can squeeze another cloudy cider
into this happiest of hours!
Outside, an ambulance arrives
and someone has broken
Isambard’s bronze cigar.