Gulls on the pitch sound faint through the night at five.

Lights are wasted on streets forsaken even by foxes.

Hooked beaks inspire each other’s desolate, distant mewing

Over the somewhat more diminished drone of one lone juggernaut

Orbiting the 406 as pallor starts to streak the curtains

No one wants to pull apart on a day of, yes, yet more delay.

We lie twisted in suspense, caught in some perpetual hour

Before dawn – our fate, it seems; whereas it’s always sunrise

For the Japanese. Gulls on the pitch mean evil on the sea.

The channel’s chopped up savagely: it’s widening with each tide;

Europe’s drifting further and further, further and further

Away. The inland gulls crying why, why do we stay?

Icebergs break off; causing congestion on the North Sea.

Disassociated homes get walled against theft from a neighbour.

The battered gulls perch on our walls, watched carefully

By patient foxes. As for that Japanese sunrise, it doesn’t appear.