Wilderspool Causeway

How did everything built for the millennium
flake away? So many footpaths, fountains,
stainless steel symbols of something,
visitors with a centre of tinted glass,
leaflets and a guided route around the park.

The café overlooking the dock
once galvanised who knows what
with all the guides and magazines
in a waterside folly, an island of futurism
among aspirational flats’ tired look
so soon after the block was put up.

No tourism, really, no major industry
past the heyday of Felinfoel – still there –
now most work is of the maintenance sort:
mechanics, solicitors, medics and funeral care
stemming decline or ushering in new life
to ride, run or wheel down millennium trails,

make a path through foothills of their own devising
or stay behind screens like it needn’t be Wales.