No need for neon

 

On a ladder in the sunlight

a girl teeters, laughing,

while West End crowds brush past.

This cinema does not do technology - on the outside.

There is no need for neon.

Digital script is anathema

to the Curzon cognoscenti.

She is changing our prospects,

and handing down

(one letter at a time)

the used-up attractions of the week:

the films she deconstructs,

as rigorously as a critic,

treating vowels and consonants with equal care.

One letter at a time comes down

to the young man who holds her ladder.

From the foyer only her legs are visible

and one hand

when she adds to the young man's harvest.

Her giggles live in the wobble of her ankles,

Like her teachers and mother before her,

from one generation to the next,

she stands laughing on her ladder

and hands down the alphabet.