Observe the well-heeled home improvement –
once crumbling fascia boards renewed
and paint-peeled window frames
now double-glazed. Mostly.
Stained glass panels, here and there,
remain in doors
where uPVC adjoins Victoriana.
But rusty gates, jammed open, have long gone.
Shrubbery, overgrown, cut down
then paved to park a second car.
Prompt after early Mass
(old man Choat expected you on time)
you would pick up the heavy bag, bulging
with Sundays and their supplements.
Start out, interested less
in the lurid banner headlines
than racy lingerie small ads.
Every dropped off slab of half-truths –
left in hallways, squeezed through letterboxes –
would lighten the burden.
Halfway round, at Mrs. Name Forgot,
a second load awaited.
Your hands already black with newsprint.
Stacked coins on window ledges, hidden
in eggcups, under pots, behind milk bottles.
Tips from many;
thruppenny bits the favourite.
Its twelve-sided rim like a parapet,
a nickel weight in your palm.
Sometimes you’d stop and chat.
Never mention the daily boy
who, in his pre-school rush, had no such time
and was scarcely tipped at all.
Reach inside, retrace your steps – like as not
you won’t return this way again.
From scummy culvert crawled through once
(in your own escape movie)
to alley where the town’s sole punk
sprayed RIOT NOW in Day-Glo pink,
these modest streets
they run like veins within you still.
xi. 2023
