sign me up

   It begins as a house, an end terrace

in this case

   but it will not stop there. Soon it is

an avenue

   which cambers arrogantly past the Mechanics’ Institute,

turns left

   at the main road without even looking

and quickly it is

   a town with all four major clearing banks,

a daily paper

   and a football team pushing for promotion.

   On it goes, oblivious to the Planning Acts,

the green belts

   and before we know it it is out of our hands:

city, nation,

   hemisphere, universe, hammering out in all directions

until suddenly,

   mercifully, it is drawn aside through the eye

of a black hole

   and bulleted into a neighbouring galaxy, emerging

smaller and smoother

   than a billiard ball but weighing more than Saturn.

   People stop me in the street, badger me

in the check-out queue

   and ask ‘What is this, this that is so small

and so very smooth

   but whose mass is greater than the ringed planet?’

It’s just words

   I assure them. But they will not have it.