Private suburbia

This beautiful alley flanked by orange trees
and old people going home after drinking
tea at Molly’s café. Citrus fruit on the ground,
picked up one peeled and tried to eat it,
more acidy than lemons, but since I had started
I finished. Ecological lawns are painted green,
white villas with stately doors, blank windows
are spying on me, and children can only play
in padded basements. Picked up the orange peel,
just in time a patrol car came gliding, glints
of spyglasses, unformed lackeys of the rich
out to prove their worth, I walk steady till they
disappear; helicopter clatter, white legged and
flaccid children are coming home from school.