From reception
they followed stringboards
upstairs to the photocopying room,
through accounts,
into the main offices.
Miles of white cables
overpowering skirting boards,
pinned around door frames.
And where they came up short,
taped to woodchipped walls
or burrowed beneath fitted carpets –
those ripples never went back
quite the same. Superhighways
of glossy-coated wiring
off the spools of the intercom, computer
and telephone men I cursed
for gunning on another;
electricians bamboozled
by which were live. Few takers now
for packets of cable pins, backing up
on racks in hardware stores.
I miss them. We talk to ourselves
stepping about, the skirting tops
are ledges for dust.
