The cinema where, aeons ago,

The Omen could be glimpsed

between fanned fingers, has gone

dark after the afternoon’s show;

the coming evening’s neon drench

won’t reach the straggled line

behind the bus stop.

At that end of the street –

so narrow it’s almost a stretch

a tall man might make horizontally–

road works dangle pipe-veins,

wires are stitches pulled. Outside

the concrete office block

not designed to be beautiful,

there’s a gash kept fresh and open

for the workers who will staunch

the weekend’s silences in lifts

and corridors on Monday at nine.

But for now at least, it’s Saturday.

In heels, her toes on show

beneath a filigree of softest leather,

a woman won’t be swayed

by the shower about to break again

above grey brick, grey slate, grey river;

with care she picks her footsteps

as she walks towards the corner

in a city where, eventually, she got sense:

she explodes her blue umbrella,

at exactly the right moment

the rain begins.