Late Night Bus Stop
In the shuttered shop doorway,
He sets his targets, a collared shirt man,
the glossy woman that hangs on his arm,
and begins a slow circle, the shark of Oxford Street,
a toothpick dangling from the side of lips.
"You're givin' me friend looks there"
Setting bait, his words punch the night,
a net released to blanket the couple, entangle them
"If it were me, you wouldn't be standin'"
Hooked by a five lager purpose,
the man untangles himself from his arm candy
to stagger, mouth slurring, toward the taunts,
his arm curving a fist through darkness,
her nails digging a plea for salvation into the back of his shirt.
After ambulances arrive and police question passer-bys,
the woman searches for the eyes of the man she came with
now buried in swelling flesh turned a faint aubergine,
her dress splattered like a fur coat attacked by animal activists,
his aggressors long fled, laughing into the maze of Soho.
The cops ask us if we were witness,
a question that always leads to hours in cold stations,
tea like dishwater, so we say we were
just looking at numbers, times for absent buses
amongst the crisp packs and kebab wrappers
that blow past us like London tumbleweeds.
Heather Taylor
www.heathertaylor.co.uk
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