The barren whitewashed walls won't talk

in the absence of graffiti;

no scripture scrawled in paint or chalk,

no importunate entreaty

 

saying meet me at the Nail Bar

on Saturday at half past two,

we'll promenade the boulevard

like the gentlefolk all do.

 

I'd write messages on buses

with my fingers in the dust

or the carts collecting rubbish

but those services are cut,

 

all the advertising hoardings

are dismantled from their space:

how can lovers go out courting

without a premise to deface?

 

I grieve our loss of common ground

and the death of collective art.

Conceptual sex lies out of bounds

now that you're a techno tart

 

whose fingers tap and touch in text

and a tongue I can't decipher;

yet to perpetuate affect

I'll become a Second Lifer.