Vision

They always give eye-patients west-facing, balconied rooms

gazing out over Paddington:

houses, studios, flats, side and main streets –

reassurance of London lights.

To the left, Lord’s privileged spring-fed turf

assaults and assuages the eye: nursery-ground,

main pitch, (a well-kept secret behind ranked stands,)

and the Media Centre - a tall, flattened spaceship

facing a stilted framework of arc-lights.

Let loose as if in midsummer,

we all cool our heels, fleeing dried-out air

booming through curtains from neon-lit corridors.

A Saudi-Arabian sheikh

in neutral-grey robes, flapping headdress and

all-exclusive shades pads rapidly, silently past -

but we’re in England, in April:

already we’re losing the sun, though its colours crowd on,

seen through thousands of eyes lodged in every conceivable face -

until only the cotton-wool clouds still float

before pin-pricked stars, blinking distant in space.

Angela Arratoon

Shortlisted by Mario Petrucci for the 2010 Barnet Borough Arts Council Poetry Competition