The Abandoned Plot

All the clues were in place: I felt
the constant in/out flow. We heard
of a spate of logos, unmanned desks,
gyratory reworked into an accident
waiting to happen; the smell of shellfish
and the flotsam-filled remains of 1884
we knew were always there, or do now,
seen from the air as a weeping cyst
in the edge of a walled enclosure.

The clues were under my nose.
Post-op Cadbury’s Bunny tries to smile
(the fabric slacks then tautens).
A Ford, jacked curb to curb, reverses
in a change of lights.

I could live out here. It’s thicker than a wood
and more baroque. The trees don’t bleed
and no-one has the time nor interest.
I would sleep in the day
and when the city sleeps I’d hunt
the outskirts of this isle, chase the buses
as they round the top of Leman Street
and you, the biggest clue of all,
would be there too.

Sit this one out,
my sweet, my little nest egg,
until we sink into the sand
we thought was clay and then
the whole field slips beneath us
and the leaning stones do tumble forth,
my hart, like coffins,
coughing, coffee, this.