The Harpies sit perched atop a slate roof.
North Sea Oil drips from their waxen wings,
gathers in the gutter, pools in the crevices
Between grey gull feathers and human discard.

Below them, The Labyrinth: Identical
houses stitched together like conjoined twins
Indiscernible through the smoky fog,
And a woman.

She feeds the birds, allows the sooty pigeons
To perch upon her arms as she rips
chunks out of a loaf long gone stale.

The Harpies sit unmoving, surveying their silver kingdom
The tenants peer out of windows
in rented tenement new builds.
As children run on rain soaked grass
And scare away the birds.