Stuck traffic, a jam to end all jams

and bored rigid in a taxi, the counter

climbing breathlessly

up towards its own ticking Everest;

six in the evening,

a possible fight in the sunset eve

as tempers boil over

and there by St. George’s

Hall, a complex, but through my taxi

windows, silent and animated argument

began to unburden

itself in the Liverpool warmth.

As long as we sat there,

engine revving like a lion pacing

in its own cage, I expected the worst,