We hunch our houses on straight lines in this suburb
and beach our cars on various surfaces once front lawns

cars like fish that shine in rain / dead / out of element
so far from being alive we cannot imagine their first form

something living / green / I’ve heard it said
green begins beginning we’re told

but not often – more often the stories are of fears
of hopeless mechanisations and all the invisible scarce
we suffer from

but unassuming dawn still turns up quietly in gentle greys

and the few trees left higher than the houses
stretch defiant sticks from pollard stumps

Still Here they say
Still Here  I say

then / the pigeons are back
nodding for bits thrown out to feed them
now and then finding

meanwhile circumspect and gradual lilac buds

and look / a gormless daffodil / gauche and early
grins shamelessly from its naked bed

poem and visual by Jo Mariner