At the eastern end of Bride Street
there are vistas of the sea;
in the middle huddle funeral parlours.
I could not live here.
In Clara Street, sad off-key notes
are wrung out of an untuned piano
for the weekly ballet class:
the quavers hop and lurch towards me.
Decrepit flats refuse to cede defeat
in Cedar Street, on melancholy days
beneath a flat sky, by the seal-grey bay.
