The Unknown Sabine Poem by Richard George

Slipped from A Levels' leash
I stalked the solstice dawn with a pocket camera.
In the skein of graffiti
on a railway bridge I read
'I was raped here.
It was the worst thing that ever happened to me'.

The fiend understood geometry.
Pinned in an attenuated
rectangle, bisected
by the line to Luton and Bedford
she was die-cast,
piston in a furnace.

Alone
with this anguish where epigram began,
I bowed my matchbox lens, but it captured nothing.

Three months later, cradling
tripod, macro and zoom
(and straight Grade As)
I returned on a mission.
The bridge was repainted
magnolia.

Gouge to repair.
A paradox not mine.