The feast of St John, Corpus Christi Sunday,
Houses breathing warmly out like stacks of hay,
Windows wide, the white and yellow Papal flags
Now drooped: one side of the street nods at the cool
Shadow opposite sloping towards the canal’s
Green weed that reflects nothing. Turn a corner,
Nettles lap at a high hoarding, ‘sites for sale’,
Empty window-frames, corrugated iron
In the arches of doors, old green paint softly
Blistering on gates. Cross a lane: a kitchen
Bare, darkening with one shadow milk-bottle,
Then a bright basement — a bald man in his sleeves
Folding linen in a yellow room
… Whose lives
Bulge against me, as soft as plums in a bag
Sagging at summer. New Atlantis presses
Up from under that blunt horizon, angles
At windows like ivy, forces flags apart.