Kirkcaldy Testing Works

I fear I’ll drop my phone down the grate

at the old Kirkcaldy Testing place

Every day, I walk across

the iron bars and wide-gauge cords

I go from work to grab a drink,

I see the pavement holes and shrink;

this city is built on a city, and then

another, and the ruins beneath them

I am held up on nothing but dreams and tension

like the buildings over Aldgate station

What does one fear when the selfsame bones

we get from Chicken Cottage served the audience at the Globe

and behind the art modern museum

is historical engines and commercial appeal.

Is it our own fat fingers that might let us down

or is it the state of where, and who, and what I am?

This short poem was written as part of the ‘Alphabet Superset‘ programme: it is quick work and is unedited.