The Maple Legs

An attic workshop in London on a winter evening, a bare bulb under the sloping roof, frost on a small skylight, a two-legged walking machine one metre seventy tall hanging by a canvas strap from a beam, one broad wooden foot slightly raised, two legs of pale maple with round knee and ankle joints wound with long black air muscles and grey lines, in place of a head a wooden box packed with blue circuit boards and ribbon cables, in front two rows of small round white pressure gauges with plain faces, many green valves at its side, all timber plain and bare, two hands pushing an air hose onto a valve.