Yu gingerly turns the handle

and shoves the front door open

over the accumulation of local

advertisers and electricity bills

under the letter box in the hall.

The TV and the living room

furniture have all been taken

off by Special Branch. She

treads the uncarpeted staircase

up to her empty bedroom;

looks out through the uncurtained

window over the greenhouse

and the garden fence, the sewage

treatment center, the steeple

in the distance like a hypodermic

needle piercing the sky, the unseen

ancient circle of mystical stones,

the chemical and biological

weapons facility, the motorways

speeding through rolling downs,

the big city, the white cliffs,

the P & O ferry, continental

Europe stretching out far

and wide from the Gare du Nord

out across the unconquered

endless steppes of her motherland.