Thursday, 26 January 2012

Commuted sentence

Roofs that top buildings like sad caps. Chimneys that quit the habit. Livers touched by fumes and exhaust, tired limbs and overworked minds. Slippery paving, sticky stones and guiding rails unwilling to let go. The walls are flypaper and sooner or later we'll get caught, trapped in amber light that does not harden to rock but melts like honey, leaving only a bothering slick on the pavement. 

Washed and brushed and sluiced over morning juice hawked from forecourts. Fuelled by overpriced oats, yogurt souring the teeth on the Waterloo and City line. The wait is ossified time, bodies slaked in lime and cast together slightly wet at the edges from coffee. Fingers wander ridges and lids pressed up erupt with steam. We disembark two by two into the light and bite of day from night, coughed up gravelly steps soundtracked by glottal stops. Gingerly resting hands on chill rails, hoping for sales, cursing the wind that carries our ship to every port of call then dies suddenly, becalmed just when we think we're getting somewhere.  

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