You heard it here first.

The Expense

The bowels of Haymarket Metro station are finished tonight
or so I overhear from three middle-aged men in linen suits,
one of whom has an accent that hides behind his tidy moustache.

All three have immaculate tans or cultivated sunburn lines
and can afford never to have set foot in the earth themselves,
expensive as the sun is. It would explain a lot

if it was done. I've been hearing rumblings for a while now,
have felt Newcastle waking up and learning how to breathe
out the flapping glory-lists of fare dodgers.

Pictures of these tunnels have passed through all of these
men's hands. The men rise to their well-brogued feet
to compare ideas and mention landmarks like Top Trumps cards.

I make myself remember walking the length of every bridge
they name, admiring each bolt for its semblance of permanence;
waiting for the brisk Tyne wind to shake every one out of place.