Heathrow

Heathrow

Patted down then released for the long run through the shopping

sprees and state of Britain today to the gate,

I halt the procession to watch the sun hit glass walls,

the rain that spat as we unloaded in the zone has moved on.

A halo leaks onto the apron, lights spin a fairground nausea

from the excavation/ construction of Terminal 2, cumulative bricolage

from number one, yet the first letter revolutionised the Greek mind,

for millennia counting the cost of algorithms

and hammering soliloquies on radar, radio and reflective clothing,

ferrets, wiring, batteries, plastics, alumina, oxygen and carbon,

software engineers, material scientists, security personnel,

armed response groups, passport technology, surveillance, and

the discovery of flight with flaps but no flapping, the patent application

lodged in the spring of 1903, the key being control, ignition, fermentation,

cross-pollination in the world’s busiest airport with its own press corps

and clergy, cumulative and recursive. My cousin’s wife is head of immigration.

The empire is lost, but the island remains desirable, enmeshed in the miracle

of capitalism by the fat controllers taking shelter in the control tower.

Temporarily homeless, I am about to lose a day of my life

as Newton’s obstinate mechanics leaves summer’s signature behind.