Cigarettes on Grey Street
corner seem appropriate.
You’re telling me you’re a
Redsmith for a contemporary
gallery and some northern
university or another while
assuming me up and down.
I’m wearing a plastic red
mac and nude heels with
slack slingbacks lacking
any firm ankle support
but more than adept at
softly killing wet pavements.
Red hot tar’s spread on my
soul, which you’ll never
see, and my black silk scarf
is strangling me with a
permanent knot I just can’t get
out with usual, casual dexterity
and we’re licking our tongues
on mendacity, treated like
a noun, personified to within
an inch of its life. Where will
we go tomorrow? Who will
we be? At the red lit man
pack of cards pedestrians seem
happy to crash into the same
old routine of a rush hours
matt grey sky and twilight
petrol fumes, pushing hectic
around before Dean Street.
Through the vision in your eyes
I can see you’re approximately
years and years behind me, I
need breeze from the quayside,
feeling inclined to find my own
highlights, perfect timing or a
shot of some other metallic, without
looking back I step into the traffic.
