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
