WHERE'S THE FOURTH BRIDGE?
The new iron age brought Forth a conjunction
A shipyard's patois, iron girders wrought.
Two engineers conceived its form and function,
Four thousand briggers its fruition brought.
Three huge red diamonds gleam against the sky*
UNESCO's necklace gracing estuary.
And trains conveying passengers do fly
Across the bridge. Aye, way above the sea.
This first - of three! - made possible a scheme:
The sleeper out of King's Cross they would take,
And o'er the bridge it raced to Aberdeen
In record time, on Scottish shores they wake.
*One cantilever short of poetry
Yet space enough to fit, the irony.