Scavenger, scrag, a crow’s craw, there’s nothing beautiful here,
steel shorn right away,
roof flapping windless,
time is caught in little squares of fractured windows, the skeletons
of things, a factory dies.


Around the foundry, a detritus of now: dog-shit, condoms,
fast-food scrap, the throwaway grot
caught in light and shadow.
The furnace gapes its maw, and in between each tooth of cog
and wheel, lichen spores and browns.

Sit quiet, listen. A crucible of past heats the air, grind, hammer,
bench-blow, jolt, the falling walls
throw down the clanging scrape of days,
and somewhere near the shake-out chains, among the ghosted stamp
of boots, my grandad turns to look me in the eye.

Mary Gilonne is a translator living in France, originally from Devon. Her latest collection, Sublimity, is available from sublimenorfolk.co.uk.

Poetry submissions to thursdaypoems@gmail.com