I turned 34 and started watching Countryfile

On the seventh or so episode, 

I noticed the presenters are always in black bogs 

or skeletal woods, 

not luscious gardens. 

I like that about it! 

It reminds me of my job: 

developing property for Salford Council 

could be glamorous –  

glass-grade offices and brand-spank bridges glint on the horizon  

(the regen team call early ideas “twinkles”, which I think is lovely) 

but I prefer getting into the weeds of housing estates. 

I feel like I’m really loving the city 

when I get cameras put down its drains 

or walk with dogeared plans along flytipped footpaths. 

I guess I can only love something grittily, 

even a landscape. 

Maybe there’s grit in love itself – at least, in mine. 

As if to prove my point, 

a pair of pigeons have just landed,  

miraculously, on my shed. 

Their necks glow purple 

like tropical fish scales or puddles of petrol. 

I look it up and, apparently,  

it’s the feather structure refracting light. 

My Gran used to call them flying rats. But I say: 

To see a World in a pigeon’s sun 

and a Heaven in a lawnmower.  

Hold Infinity in a pile foundation 

and Eternity in a Council twinkle-tower.