Zoom!

It begins as a house, an end terrace

in this case

but it will not stop there. Soon it is

an avenue

which cambers arrogantly past the Mechanics' Institute,

turns left

at the main road without even looking

and quickly it is

a town with all four major clearing banks,

a daily paper

and a football team pushing for promotion.

On it goes, oblivious of the Planning Acts,

the green belts,

and before we know it it is out of our hands:

city, nation,

hemisphere, universe, hammering out in all directions

until suddenly,

mercifully, it is drawn aside through the eye

of a black hole

and bulleted into a neighbouring galaxy, emerging

smaller and smoother

than a billiard ball but weighing more than Saturn.

People stop me in the street, badger me

in the check-out queue

and ask "What is this, this that is so small

and so very smooth

but whose mass is greater than the ringed planet?"

It's just words

I assure them. But they will not have it.

Source: Zoom! (Bloodaxe Books, 1987)