Hebrew Character

What are you doing here

Hunched in the window frame

Of this defunct phone box?

Was it the cold flame

Of fluorescent light

That brought you rowing

Over purple loosestrife

Buckthorn and rowan

Into the concrete precinct?

I wouldn't dare touch

The fragile pencil shaving

Of fur and rust

The magic dust

Coating the drawn shields of the wings

The pale stigmata

Of ink-paper foxing

The smoke-screen mantle

Look!

A tortoiseshell brooch

A scab of dried mud

A dead leaf

An old fingerprint of blood

Stare unblinkingly

At the sand and bark camouflage

And suddenly

A bold calligraphy stares back

Look!

A tortoiseshell brooch

A scab of dried mud

A dead leaf

An old fingerprint of blood

But what are you doing here

On Eldon Street?

Your tawny robe

A single hand-drawn glyph

Of primitive code

Written in the year dot

One scrap of wind-blown confetti

Stained with an ink-blot test

Crouched among overgrown graffiti

In the vandalised kiosk

Nothing connects to nowhere

And ripped wires

Try to root in mid-air

Next to the headless telephone

Look!

A tortoiseshell brooch

A scab of dried mud

A dead leaf

An old fingerprint of blood

Next to the banjaxed keypad

With its haywire maths

And garbled alphabet

What are you saying

Moth?

Look!

A tortoiseshell brooch

A scab of dried mud

A dead leaf

An old fingerprint of blood

A tortoiseshell brooch

A scab of dried mud

An old leaf

A dead fingerprint of blood

A tortoiseshell brooch

A scab of dried mud

A dead leaf...