Civil Twilight Poem by Elizabeth Anne Martina Ryan

Emotion scoops the footpath's velvet edges,
estate agents' bluster calibrates the street's
livability, treeless, ajar with fridges
bunked out. Investors wave sheets
of sums to air, a tiny computer chalked
on glass, loving the artist's marble noose
in adjacent pop-up gallery they might've forked
out for, but didn't. It was no use
crying now though her vale of tears candies
a conquest, with stuck name tag and good insurance
that barely cost a sou. A countdown into space
echoes, blue lorikeets flit the race
and pigeons chew the eaves for reassurance
over suckling locals and tourist dandies.