I saw her peering from a black cab circling Seven Dials;
a paper-thin, powdery leer, a skeleton's smile
in a blue velvet cowl. I swear she held a scythe
and carried a burning torch that blazed
and blackened windows where it passed. Her ladies
in waiting were succubi, a swarm of flies
who stalked behind the carriage, stone-locusts
wearing the brick of the buildings to dust,
swept smoke blown, people going bone, gone ghost
after the funeral march. The taxi turned hearse.
Danse Macabre. Dogs and children thinned, scourged,
emaciated in the flow. Meanwhile the corpse, gorged,
fattens and bloats until it reaches the Thames edge
where it emerges and floats. The river runs black sludge.
Storm drains. Red and blue ministers drown in the bilge
pumped water. The streets are rinsed with blood.
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