We searched for it

through the tarmac in every rain-bruised sky
in dark Pennine shadows where great mills

spewed out ringlets of ghost-grey fog

I like to think it’s a story about himself and Einstein
floating in zero gravity, Albert sailing through the capsule
toward his drifting pipe, Brian playing We Will Rock You—

Sleep. 
Elusive as lucid dreams.

Closed eyes teem wotsit-orange,
spiderweb scarlet &
thatch-brown

Out again with the pitchfork churning 
compost into the old green bin, stinking
and silent as an ancient earthen vat.

This is not a frilly, mushy love letter 
to a city whose allure lies in defying all labels and holding the mystery key to a man’s heart, though none has ever been able to lay an absolute claim on it, 

Around midnight, the hour when pain
reasserts its dominance, a voice
behind the curtain screening
my bed from the next patient’s:
an intonation penetrating abstract thoughts

They’ve mended the park fence again,
patched it over with the usual ugly metalwork,
like a riot barricade.

Across the barren land
where blood once played its savage Holi,
the fearless migratory birds
have returned again.

It wobbles slightly, red wine jelly.

I peer at it, nose close enough 

to smell the iron, the scent of coagulant,

inhaling through slightly parted lips