A house alongside the road
has been gutted; a few remains
of the furnishings—wallpaper, toasters, beams—
peak out amid the empty wounds
where the building gave up its ghost
like an old man opening wide for one last breath—
only the fire here opened
every mouth, all over the body
a gash in the knee, a sick smile in the gut
a fantastic crying in the roof—

I knew this house—much of a muchness
with the others hutched along its stretch
of road I must have passed
its yellow teeth (pleasantly hid
behind blank window glass) like a smile on a bus
conductress's usual route: then gone.
We do not know when things will come
to an end. The up escalator
stops abruptly—and the figures at the head
disappear from sight—like cigarette ash
tipped, without warning by the intook breath
lurch of a hand—nothing survives of us but roads
taken every day without the sight of love
and a few small effects gathered by the lovers we have calmed.