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The tourist’s charity,
cheaply made:
a box of hotel matches
and a portion of marmalade.
10
They’ve built up the park with saplings, and behind them
dug in new tower blocks.
By day an old woman upends the bins,
by night the fox.
11
A bubble blows across People’s Square,
disappears in the central fountain.
Those films of the mass demonstrations –
the people waving, shouting, fainting.
12
We went to the philosopher’s lecture on globalisation –
the question: whether to crowd into the hall
or listen from outside.
13
May Day, and the workers are out on the streets,
sweeping the rubbish into small heaps.
14
Under the black, sagging skies,
the spirit of enquiry:
a young man tries
the doors of a 4-wheel drive.
15
A half-built
tower,
windowless
in the rain, as if
towelless
in the bathroom,
I walk in on it.
16
The short dark blueness of light around seven;
the workers in the train in their shirts and blouses;
the long lights that dot down the towers where they come from:
the dark distant kitchens of their houses.
17
And so it
becomes normal,
anything
becomes normal,
the stiff and
polished
turn dull and
informal,
and the houses
that were there
have been demolished.
18
You asked me if the evening was a success:
well you couldn’t see the sponsors’ logos;
this guy said I was handsome and asked for my address;
and photographers were taking photos of the photos.
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