Winter City (Poetry)

The green man says it’s safe to cross
his hidden causeway, smooth, unpocked
by footsteps where old pavements sleep,
anonymous beneath white sheets

that smother, drape the silhouettes
of city statues, veil and deck
the stiff-necked buildings, trim each ledge
with brittle bands — snow ribbons thread

the tiers of stone like wedding cake
iced delicately, flake by flake.
The hooded globes of street lamps throw
a modest gleam, a muted glow

on plane trees — trunks turned marcasite,
each aching limb supports a fleece
that fluffs to fill the barren crooks
of winter branches stark with hooks.

A scraper board designed by night —
dark shadows, outlines etched in white
and cut in silence. The veined eye
of Big Ben’s tower watches, sly,

and measures crisp horizons, marks
the buried roads, the swallowed parks
and squares transformed to arctic fields,
unsigned, familiar names concealed

by snow’s cold camouflage — swift change
of boundaries now rearranged —
while phantom traffic queues, unseen,
as signals switch from red to green.