Yesterday someone sideswiped my parked car

Scraped white scour marks over its shiny blue paint

Then drove off, without as much as a by-your-leave

So much for the video eye in the crowded sky

What is mine

Lies violated

So off we limped along the wall

Thrown up by Hadrian

To mark the ragged edge of Empire

Its stones stand still to mark the way

That ownership requires protection

At the point of a rusty spear

I am validated far too readily

By what is inside my walls

I am motivated far too often

By fear of what lies outside them

All that I own

Buries me

The old fortifications

Still lacing this landscape

Lie like the tracery of old wounds

That never quite healed