Cloud of gold and night
And hurt, swarming around an
Oily dumpster filled with sacks
Of torn receipts
And polystyrene fish-stink boxes;
Yellowing bags bloodied from
The butcher's counter.
Plastic sacks the gulls have sliced
Open with grease beaks and lard white skulls
(The optimal greed of bird)

But it is the wasp's tornado of
Stingers
And beautifully armoured torsos,
The heat of them and the buzz wing
Drone below the clang
Of the scrap yard next door;
The hum of something you could call anger
In a woman or a man,

But which is nothing more than wing
Against heat, it is that which strikes me,
That meaningless will to go on.