Muscovite Wake
"Robert" I say
although that's not
your name
"How quickly this beast
of a city dissolves"
Ten minutes out
of the station,
there's nothing left
smouldering factories give
to bare trees, dilapidated
people, crooked shacks.
You quip something
about people
making cities
and that nothing with
a soul actually lives in
the rattling mass we left.
"That just makes
this a cemetery"
I retort without blinking
from the cold window
a bundled boy on
a folded tin roof
stands bolt straight,
watches us pass
as the dead often do.
