The city has been stamped with leaves
and is a mail bag, waiting to be posted somewhere.
Houses, on a hillside, stacked like letters
spilling over so the wind can almost snatch them.
Its streets are grit filled markings on a shoe sole
cambering uneasily at the heel
and worn into themselves like grafted skin.
The tarmac has a greasy sheen.
Only people’s backs, hunched towards shopping,
confirm life happens here, wrapped in cagoules,
people personable as tents zipped shut,
canvas for the rain to write on.
They lean into windows lit like oilseed,
believe they’re holding something by its horns.
Their houses ache like letters that leave something bad unsaid.
But now the whole world knows their thoughts.
Theirs was only the stale and temporary discretion
of booths at a polling station.
Houses on the hillside turn to banners
filling with the wind, which will not take them far.