Miss

In one bricked box –
Wide apart yet crowded together
Discussing the news, the garden, the weather –
‘How are you darling?’
‘How’s your Mum, the kids?’
Decoded as ‘I hate you’
‘I want to be you’
‘I’m better than you’
‘I win’

A box above in the colony tower
A single picture frame
Mounted by its lost owner
Departed, defaulted and gone.
Here too are shadows of sharp-toothed, sharp-elbowed gatherings
Now elbowed out.

The final box, the next shell above
Shell shocked, a glimmer of the future.
Paint peeling, no repairs to be done.
This one will let the rot creep
The landlord will smile with a profit deal done
As the darkness seeps downwards
The ivy grows upwards
The laughter dies down and the bulldozers come