Orford Street

ORFORD STREET was condemned

All the houses were empty

The people had gone to

Another part of the city

All the doors and windows

Were boarded up

One house was buttressed

From the side

To stop it falling down

This house had no front door

And all its windows were

Smashed

In the front room of the house

The room that would

Have been called the parlour

All the floorboards had been

Ripped up

Split from their nails

As though by a madman in a frenzy

Possessed of great strength

Looking for something he had lost

The fireplace in this room

Was made of mottled tiles

Some of the tiles were broken

Some of them were missing

The firebasket was filled with ashes

And lying on the ashes

Was the dead body of a pigeon

With its withered claws

Clenched tight in its chest

As though in indignation

At what it had seen

In the corner of the room

There had been a gas meter

But it had been taken away

And the pipes hammered flat

Propped against these pipes

Was the remains of a fur toy of some kind

Holding its remaining limb

Awkwardly above its head

As though to ward off

Some intended blow

Above this sad toy

Suspended from the window of the room

Pinched and trapped

Was a garment of some kind

Hanging there, a limp suicidal thing

That had failed in its

Hysterical attempts to get away

From this hollow ruin