As I Walk Through Birmingham. Poem by Miki Byrne

I pass grey buildings where decisions are made.
Notice how the industrial revolution smeared
dark blusher on their ageing cheeks.
My stride carries me down the alleyway.
From the Art School, between the concrete cliffs
of the Coroners building and Lloyds Bank.
The funnelled wind pushes hard. My feet throb,
Damp with sleet. In Victoria Square litter flutters.
Crabs across the slabs.
Catches upon the modernist balls of stone
Where students perch in summertime.
My neck shivers under stray rivulets that stalk my spine.
I dare not smile. The wind will whip it away
Before I can blink the water from my eyes.
This city is high and hilly. Like Rome, or Edinburgh.
Cudgelled by wind and rain. I walk head down.
A hammerhead shark. Flowing over pavements.
Slithering through winter-wrapped bodies.
Gormleys' Iron Man stands stoic in falling pellets.
Misery oozes from the hunched backs of walkers,
who dodge into shops for ten seconds heat,
a newspaper they don't really want.
I watch ice water spurt upwards from a fountain.
It gushes with Artesian splendour. Makes a sparkling umbrella.
The new one on my right ripples and slaps in the wind.
Broad as a lake. I dodge the spray, head downhill.
Through a corridor of lighted windows.
Past praying mantis limbs of mannequins, stacked walls
of white goods. I enter a blue and yellow bus.
Full and fuggy with condensation. Traffic crawls and behind me,
the city readies itself for night.