The Snowball

In steel shelters the colour of lemons kept
too long, we wait for pay-day, winning
the snowball; remember the picture-house
before Bingo took over. I leave the
shelter, remove mitts: synonymous fingers
learn different shapes, explore crevices on
walls, particularities of mortar. Beneath
my touch the 'Lyric' moans in labour.

From images of memory and the
distraction of hope, I lift a structure
obscured with blood. This place is old to
have itself, the child sickly, hardly here
before it is not here. I shall not
have time to find the faint heart beating in
what I have dragged from dirty walls, to rub
life till its beat grows steady: to train thought
...