Terror swims inside me like a basking shark –
it is my sullen wake, it fills the air behind
as I’m drawn along suburban stone.
I see the wild forgotten as a dream is forgotten
I know I dreamed, but what was it?

I stand on a hill and see the city
draining down its valley plughole –
soft scars left in the grading air.
I see this city move as a scrapheap moves
slowly downwards, churning the earth.

Waiting for a bus I wait too long
and my figure, mistaken for a statue
by some routine artist in a tatty book
is selected for the top of the heap
which moves, and the wild falls further.

In a shifting forest, in the past beyond thought
a foraging girl picks out an acorn
from a skin of dry leaves, her breath
marks the air. She leaves it
and the earth hurtles out from beneath