Dirty Spinach Leaves

Winds the Tyne like a belt at the waist of two cities.
The upper body wears a skin tight as kin,
Although the right arm raised as Scotswood sags as
heavy sighs puff down houses and the West Road song
fades on the hard wind of central breath.

The Grandmother knew, when the church clock stopped
at ten to twelve and nobody came to begin time again,
that the wolf was putting on his hard hat
and chartering surveyors.

The vein of the other arm stretches
Like a wall until its end where the fingernails
Fossilise in sand. The metro maps the palm’s circle.

A gate opens below the river,
then legs pointing south out of thighs
firm as Emily Davies’ face as she galloped out of Bensham
down past the ankle that now wears
an Angel anklet that jingles like a clinking charm
As cars vibrate the bone of the hill
Upon which it rusts in the rain.

Winds the Tyne like a belt at the waist of two cities.
The upper body wears a skin tight as kin,
Although the right arm raised as Scotswood sags as
heavy sighs puff down houses and the West Road song
fades on the hard wind of central breath.

The Grandmother knew, when the church clock stopped
at ten to twelve and nobody came to begin time again,
that the wolf was putting on his hard hat
and chartering surveyors.

The vein of the other arm stretches
Like a wall until its end where the fingernails
Fossilise in sand. The metro maps the palm’s circle.

A gate opens below the river,
then legs pointing south out of thighs
firm as Emily Davies’ face as she galloped out of Bensham
down past the ankle that now wears
an Angel anklet that jingles like a clinking charm
As cars vibrate the bone of the hill
Upon which it rusts in the rain.

I hadn't seen Lucy for a while
when we met in the snow
outside the pub,
staring upwards, our mouths open
to the fingerprints,
trying to catch the shape of God;
the pattern of its DNA.

Lucy's hair is melting
as close as we can come
to touching the unique.