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On the train a young woman pecks with her thumbs at her mobile phone.
I count four Fascist symbols on her clothing.
No, there’s another on her belt buckle.
As she turns to leave I see on the back
of her black bomber jacket
the emblem of the British Crown –
just like the one on my passport.

Down in reception a lady in a wheelchair
waits for the lift to arrive.
She is shrouded from head to foot in black,
her face concealed – niqab – the mask.
Woman as dark matter;
so dangerously powerful
she haunts the space like a black hole.

In the mirror pool us naked female Slavs,
Germans, Anglo Saxons
soak as peaceful and placid and pale
as manatees chewing the cud
of slow passing minutes –
a woman arrives strangely clad in a white gown
drawn tight about her neck.
It billows out slowly as she enters the water
through which an electric current now seems to quietly buzz.

In Belgium, politicians debate the banning of the burqa and niqab,
in France too.
Torture allegations hang in the air like a dark ash cloud,
unscheduled flights flying in the night like invisible worms
to feed on the fruits of the Enlightenment.
Sometimes you can destroy utterly
that which you hold most dear
through trying to protect it.

© Frances Bathgate, April 2010