I wanted you more than dignity, in a town that’s perennially

20.    A pallet box bench calls the names of its lost

when the class of  ‘19 got up off it.          There are skips

that are frantic for mattress cadavers, to suck on old

bathroom bones. Ivy runs riot on half painted fences.

Elmet’s still greedy to eat every structure neglected.

Stadium roses tilt lightbulb heads like questions that hang

on their stems. Rows of white seats form invisaligned teeth

to snap at the circling kites. The air sucks the boiled sweet

tailwind from first blood freshers. Boys riding bikes

with no hands hunt their phones for replies. Tuna fish thighs

still leap from their winter shorts. They pull up in autumn

with their Mams and their freshly washed getaway.

By May, their wants have new faces.           Mine don’t.

It’s clear I want more of you than I can have.  She was mine

says a wall on the Canterbury Drive to furrow

on furrow of rental assets. She was mine, I reply

as I post empty bottles through the ravening mouth

of their plastic tomb.  She was mine and the shattering glass

hisses back: The hunger’s familiar. You’ll take what you know

over need. At the end of the street, my fine bluebell woods.

The trunk creepers clinging like bias-cut satin needs hips.

The stranger I visit there, waiting to speak of the night

that the city devoured every light in its orbit. Empty October.

Leaves curled in ombre. The fog came so thick it felt

like the world had rolled off the edge of a cliff.

You could just take a step. To shift. To plummet.