The Eye And Inside Being Them

Lifts unfold them like origami
to omniscient, one-armed cranes
pointing their guns skyward
prophesying rain.

Cyclists dismount.
Lorries flick their scent.
Dolphin trains beach
into Paddington station,

Herald streetlamps bow their heads,
keeping a respectful distance
from the beheaded streetlamp,
a garland taped to its midriff,

cables, like arteries spouting
pointlessly from its straight-back.
On motorways, cars chase each other,
in the wrong direction:

one side, red-rimmed exhausted;
the other, eager, nearly home.
Turning down lanes they stare:
defiant and bashful at each other,

lowering their eyes as they get closer.
Unlike the French whose bumpers nuzzle,
sniffing like animals at the exhausts
to know where they’ve been and each other.