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