Our Town

We built the town,
we gave the town away
to folk who didn't love
it well enough. We're back
to see how it has fared.

We trailed it like a smile
along the river. Pinned it there,
a church spire at each end,
a pub or two to keep it tight -
but not too tight.
And that was that -
or so we thought.

Since when,
the careless ones
have filled each green
and verdant space
with tenements
like old teeth gritted
stubbornly
behind the smile.

We must give folk
somewhere to live
they would contend - and
that was true enough.

But now decay
has visited the teeth.
Their turn to be unloved,
unlived-in and a prey
for vandals. Only
the graffitists now
will give them
time of day.