Starlings whir on sharp wings
over the old railway works,
like birds flown from children's drawings.
They gather at the Mechanics' Institute at dusk,

circle and circle and then hurtle
like lobbed stones into black openings
in the boarded-up turrets,
impossibly precise, as if the video
of their morning launch were running backwards.

Talk is cheap in their urban hide-out,
and I hear them debating again the next morning,
all stiletto bills and calls
like car alarms and mobile ring-tones:
Is it light enough yet?
What about now? Or now?

A female sparrowhawk times them out,
lunges as they emerge and scatter.
She carries one off squealing towards the station
to find a quiet place to kill,

but the rest are back in the evening
as the sun sets over the Outlet Village,
arcing their perfect dives
like dark shooting stars above my head.