Arbeit Macht Frei
The first weakening of night
picks out telephone lines,
black against sky.
The eyelid of a garage door
lurches laboriously up.
A car coughs blue breath.
With aerosols and plastic scrapers
clandestine delights of frostwebs
are raked to chemical sludge.
Starter motors whine.
Windscreens cloud with pain.
Gears grind teeth.
An electric train
gingerly
utters inarticulate from the sheds,
groaning over cold joints.
Thinking grimly
of tunnels ahead,
it flares with ill-humor
crossing the points.
On unworked land beside the track,
a fox is heading home.
Gliding through
beneath the "keep out" sign,
he grins at the engine,
which just judders along,
headlights trained
on parallel lines
which glint ahead,
reflecting lurid signal red,
extending out, but never meeting,
towards the vanishing point.
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