Sphinx Gang

Round eleven it burns down

The engines are turning,

churning up

dormant subterranean turtles,

laying flat kerbs for giant cars,

upheaving monitor eggs,

yellow men

coral them in sandpits,

soon they’ll be hatched out

by stray, broody ostriches

weary, careworn nomads,

whose ivory gonads bristle

in brutal

municipal sackcloth

bend to add

another egg to the pyramid