Engargoyled grime-thick luxury, dusts
like a golden pall, a city-state
five blocks by twelve, where children
hide their cold reductive eyes
and merry widows launder up the hill.
The coach of the People’s Republic
is splintered up and down the frontier trail.
Bits still blaze from the sudden trench,
from the wafery pod of a crumbling skull.
Diesel’s perfume crawls like phoenix,
tiny flames lick their tiny bluebell heads
in retreat before the vanguard of necrotic wind.
The sky is masked with the ripple of a
tufted word and all who speak it
do so with the vanity of purest love.