I rest my head for a moment on the cool concrete wall

of the art gallery and in its undulations I can feel the past

trying to break out of its unexpected vertical tomb.

I could rub the back of my head into one of the grooves,

wear it away, erode it imperceptibly over a day’s eon

until I could place my head right back into the crevasse,

a temporary sarcophagus, an extra heavy duty crash helmet.

This of course might be an over-reaction to the images

I’ve just seen: a world melting, gangsters wearing dresses

and razor’d scars of silver stars, lakes of petrol waiting

for paper boats to be sailed upon them, as if Neptune had

said yes to a sponsorship deal from [insert oil company name

here] but only lately realised that the proposed replacement

for a rapidly-drying Aral Sea might not have been everything

promised in the brochure. Caveat emptor, as we all should have

said in 1764 when Hargreaves spun Jenny, but how could any

of us know that coal + steam would equal not just movement

but the end? I might stay in here, it keeps my head cool.