Atom smasher

In the port town
by the river
is a waiting room;

a word cloud
laminated on a wall -
a tasteful colour theme.

'These are our values:'
Confident and large; 'inclusion', 'care'
then getting smaller, blurrier; 'respect, 'compassion'.

After that it gets too small to read; you might
half-see, half-hallucinate
(delirious from waiting):
depravity, manipulation,
pettiness, mean mindedness,
bad faith.

Then when you are tired, too tired
even for that, you look out of the window
at the river, at the grit and mud
that once were boulders, higher up,
where there's a stream, a torrent.

Higher still, the white plateau,
the institute - paid for by all the countries
who want atoms smashed -
the workers on their days off,
ice-climbing,
alone but for the rope.