Regular as Clockwork
On Tuesdays, and only on Tuesdays, mind,
make sure you come off shift prompt at 2 a.m.
by the World Service pips. Cross the car park,
go through the gap in the perimeter fencing,
the one the baboons made. Keep straight ahead.
You’ll have the fighter dispersal on your left,
the half-built hangars on your right,
until you go over the edge of the scarp.
In fifty paces, you’ll cut loose from the whole shebang,
generator hum, security lighting, construction racket.
By the time you reach the clapped out pick-up,
you’ll have your night vision. In your one o’clock,
there’ll be a big rock, loaf-shaped. Climb it
from the right hand side. There’s a thorn thing
on the left that’ll rip you to shreds, if you fall in it.
On top, look for a hollow place where the lizards sit,
big bastards with bright green faces and paws,
but they’ll be long gone by the time you get there.
If you’ve not dawdled, you should have no more
than five minutes to wait. The lead animal always
has a bloke on top, and another walking at the head.
The last’s a bit like a guard’s van, guy sitting on a box.
In between, it’s just camel after camel after camel,
with a loop of rope dangling between them,
and salt bags hanging down, each side of the hump,
like udders. I’ve tried counting, scores of times,
but you lose track, somehow. It’s the way they sway.
I’ve timed them, though. It takes anything from
fifteen to twenty minutes for a caravan to track by.
Now and then there’s a boy running, but not always.
The odd time I’ve seen a woman riding.
Woman, girl. Hard to tell, really, sat bolt upright
like a Guinness bottle. Never a word from any of them,
just the grunt or spit from one of the beasts,
and the moon hanging up there like a gong,
and the stars like you’ve never seen stars,
and the bondu dogs yapping in the distance.
It’s as if you’d opened the Bible and crept inside.
The driver who pitches up with our crew-coach says
it’s been going on like that since before Mohammed.
I’m telling you, you could set your watch by them.
On Tuesdays, mind, only on Tuesdays.
Page(s) 18-19
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