Once on the road it picked up pace, free-wheeled,
then moved up through the gears, and wouldn’t give
Three Colts Lane, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, E2
to shoulder-charges, kicks; resisted force
until to tangle with it would have been
Three Colts Lane, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, E2
to test bone against engine or machine,
to be dragged in, broken, thrown out again
minus a limb.
Three Colts Lane, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, E2
From Simon Armitage’s The Tyre (1997)
