Silver-shirted crows
perch nest flap round mighty trunks
of skyward-thrusting
rusting smog-begrimed khaki.
A forest of grey oblongs.
Corrugated sheds
proffer shellfish, mobile phones,
pet cats and haircuts.
Tricolours flutter from masts.
Three fighter planes rip the air.
A nest-haired woman,
mouth full of Slavic gurgles,
glass brick in chapped hand,
greeted by Baltic grumbles,
pisses up the jeweller’s wall.
The pavement a soup
of craters children could chalk
and play hopscotch in.
Instead they swing on steel rods
that creak like old weaponry.
The midsummer sky
cracks open for a second
unleashing at once
its hailstone artillery.
Shrapnel batters the windows.
Fraying curtains hang
down to the hard orange floor.
A knitted doily.
Dusty floral crockery.
Five black vodka-beakerlets.
Map on wall, I gaze
at the watchtower-sprinkled
lawns of the death-strip
and the Stasi boats that file
into the Humboldthafen.
There squints my old home,
five storeys of crumbling wood
they forgot to bomb,
echoing in grilled chicken,
hot days and gypsy music.
