I'm packing myself away, folding myself into clipped consonants.
I'm tightening my grin against the weather, the sudden grey of arrival.

Everyone looks so grim and bear it, so thickly socked and guarded.
It's their bottle greens and navy blues. England is so buttoned up.

I'm five a.m. Sand and dust and cactus wrens.
The sun is rising above the saguaros, striking the side of A Mountain.

Again and again, the crisp T interrupts: security alert british airways
a quarter past two gate forty three. Like a purse snapping shut.

The Thames whine miaows from mouth to mouth.
Tabloids open and close, open and close.

Another landscape is hurtling towards me. I click into place,
remember to look from left to right and left again.

The Pennines rise swiftly then disappear. I'm late evening,
folded away, neat as a two-piece suit, and wearing grey for survival.