shelter '81

every evening

without fail

I would watch

from my third floor

neon, Freon, digital eyrie

as he scraped his arse along the street

shuffling, scuffing the rags that passed for raiment

ripping the empty legs further each night

as the chorus of inebriate fighters,

noses swollen veined plums,

caroused and cajoled his every

gravelled slide

while throwing punches, and each other, can in hand

at passing cars

his limbs, of wood and plastic,

would arrive later

under police escort

old world problems under the new world’s

hardened, refrigerated glaze

every evening

without fail

until the day he didn’t