A dozen raised cherry-pickers
in a lit yard at dusk, in a circle:
you might say, a concentration,
a conclave, an acclaim …

whereas this dump of dayglo
bollards and cones, like an off-
handed cast of I Ching: a mishmash,
an abandonment, a disdain.

What’s the plural of many, when what
we make turns to itself, without us,
come into its own? Not hoards now
but hordes of the things.

By Portway Docks we pass a fair field full
of auto-opportunities, sans number plates,
all blandish, brand and gleam
and less identity

than the emperor’s porcelain army,
each of which possessed at least
(was possessed by) a face.
Your face, it could be,

in the windscreen, yours and mine.
Our names on a green surtitle. Drive
carefully. Abundance glimpsed
in passing like a mile-

long TV showroom window flickering
in slightly differing widths and tones
and definitions. So our things
become us, we

them. Do what they do. Smile.