Wilderspool Causeway

Enough time to roll one up and puff
before the punters board and the microphone
cuts in. Call it dissociation from men and midges
under this nothing sky, reddening of the skin
in humid air – a blood pressure rise.
Whatever obtains or is said falls
on the elective deaf as waffle drifts
through the air about this or that
monument or plaque, some parliament
building or host to a foreign fleet in a long-
forgotten territorial dispute
we know not of.