in a northern town

The buildings put out their colour like washing;
wear their reds and yellows as a woman wears
lipstick to bring in the milk. Optimistic brick
and sandstone crowd margins and docklands.

Black is ferried in on a river that rustles white
in the sun, is offloaded, block and tackled, carted
to yards. You’ll catch it at windows; in the stoop
people put on their backs for coats; in the long

drawn-out chimneys. Tomorrow, it will come again,
bronchial, mechanical, and the mills, the factories
will put on a quick fix, a fresh coat of Runaway Rose,
step into the day, breathe out, breathe in, go on.

Published in Magma 39