'My Father's Desk'

I sit at his kneehole desk again,

A friend, an intimate, a treasure;

Restored to an alcove as before,

With a window view to the left.

Outside it, not the Pennines, though,

Beyond our back gardens and the wall

Soaring over the old sandstone quarry

Down below.

The horizons now are terraced roofs

In the street behind my place,

A blue gate to the alley between us

And the patio flags

Where magpie feathers, scattered,

Show a small carnage,

A fight to the death, perhaps,

Has earlier filled its urban square of space.