Map

Pinned to the bedside wall, my map
of the British Isles charts temperaments,
anticipates our movements. Its colouring
is arbitrary and without consequence,

except this morning - when, waking too early,
I see that we are both from yellow places
and that while mine spreads out hazily, like a fried egg
left to its own devices, yours is strung up

on tenterhooks, policed by a high-voltage fence,
charged on all sides by blue electrodes.
Streaked with lines, your city is etched
on the faces its ring road runs around.

Then I look upwards at the counties we escape to:

unfolded from the spine of the great north road,
North Yorkshire is a green paint butterfly
freshly opened, poised to be taken in
...