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Anne Berkeley

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Gasometer

I used to run past Gas Street, afraid
the merest whim would spark it off. It loomed green
over everything, the garlic smell warning
of strange powers. It went up and down
like moods, the whole town lit up and cooking.

The North Sea bubble blew it out.
Around the country, empty gantries lingered
beyond notice on the skyline, rusting and redundant,
to be wrenched apart by economic forces,
oxy-torches and an engine with a shear.

Which is why I’m up here, nose-down on this dome
where they’re peeling back the skin: rivet-dimpled,
with blooms of colour where the torch has cut.
Paint flakes and catches underneath my nails.
Unconcealed, the tank goes deeper than I’d thought.

The edge I’m leaning on creaks slightly
but it’s warm in the sun as my camera gropes
for the secrets of its structure, how in the dark
it swelled with power on a raft of water and floated up
to the very top. This broken, empty thing – I want

it whole again, the spokes and posts re-covered
as the welders left them, sealed under me and rising...
Guide-wheels squeak up pillars and in the yard
they’re shovelling coke, and gas is filling darkness
half an inch below me, lifting me into the view.

 

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