Buffalo,
Lost long ago,
Echoed on the road.
Dung flies infested the stair well,
Cave paintings disgraced the bare wall.
I heard nervous quarry gentled in
Her “well-come-in”.
A black mask, ebony stare,
Hung drumbeat-hollow over her bed.
“He’s not been well”, she said,
through a cigarette, an easy lie.
I thought implausibly about the school tie,
African treasures and white poverty.
In the hall of halls,
he was caught,
exercising the same economic and aesthetic choices,
as the other software of the stalls
but without the same money.
The colours of the dawn
(available outside business hours)
glint abstractly.
His effing fury was heard,
hurled over the hi-fi beat and computer battles.
A police siren thrust its urgent way.
Pipped music continued its clarion lullaby.
No-one woke.
Words beaded on woven threads,
stories in a moonlit tapestry,
are vulnerable to scissored minds.
There is little feel for the good fabric.
For myself I would wish for greater virtue
And for him, better luck.
Snowdrops in June, cabriolet,
the last rhino horn, apples in May.
