Poem

S. E. 8Sixteen

The corner of our street
Is where two postcodes meet,
South East 8 and Sixteen
join at an empty roundabout
that's for turning boats on.

At night, the financial fairyland
of Canary Wharf
twinkles over the inky midnight water.
In the dock
house-boats gently rock
themselves to sleep,
in the shimmering reflections.

Urban foxes prowl for pizza boxes,
their jowls drool for discarded KFC,
in the litter-strewn side streets,
the foxes eat for free.

In the 80s they knocked down Victorian docks,
replaced derelict warehouses
with toytown houses,
underground car parks
where Jaguars gleam in the dark.

It's a ghost-town weekday residence
for yuppies to rest
gym-weary limbs,
before throwing off designer sheets
to work on financial spreadsheets
over the gray Thames.

Natalie Tuckwell
London, UK

Natalie works as a graphic designer, and when she's finished pushing words and pictures around on a screen, she sometimes has some left over to play with. See http://www.natalietuckwell.com/poetry/

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