Down and out

​I was eating pizza on the steps when

A beggar asked me for money, I had
None but offered him the other half
With artichokes still hot, but he said
No it wouldn’t feel right, and walked on.

And the next bites were sweeter and
Clearer in the context of his pain, the
Mozzarella soothed my heart as a velvet
Curtain richly slices off the ache of frost.
Lucky me to eat and eat outside out of

Choice, not at home, a home to choose to not be in, not to have to find a nook every night to hook my sleeping soul on, not to
Have to sleep on stone a sleep closer to the night than is comfortable, a public

Closure of my body, a performance to the
City of my freezing lung, not enough heat to snore, just enough to breathe in before the next dreaded dram of coffin-cold air.

Girl begging on the tube

Every step a struggle
Every word a prayer for
It to stop, every blink

Caked in cheap mascara,
Every thread of jean
Grabbing at hunger aching

In the hips and knees
Under the floating breakers
Washing round the hollows
Of her emptied heart

Beggars all

The culture floats
In and out of
Any tiny
Fibre we call ‘I’

As it repeats,
Relish spills us-
Darkly we tap

The floor for new sights

Other people’s
Trash comes at us
With scraps of Right,
Written in Life

Tramp steels herself
To approach us
For a tenner
To loose the cold.

We give over,
Forget the gap,
‘I love you miss!’
Not a bad lie.