Cartlidge & Brown

Two glasses stained Red;
Last night we listened slow
and sighed as dawn slipped.

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The View From Victoria Place

Toes touch down to tile,
steel tipped and rubber soled:
minuscule mop-topped creatures
crushed as commuters commingle. Group
patterns present themselves:
twos threes and fours
weaving around between and through
the confused, circling orbits of street map stares.

There is no balletic beauty here -
trips stumbles and footing blunders bound each grace,
hawkers hover wouldyouliketotry-ing their wares to every
fourth passerby. Emboldened by downcast eyes
they forge on hammering out cries
to heat the air.

Swatting through this sonic haze one sees, centrally,
a red-faced and bellowing man
large in his impatience: shifting his considerable weight
and shuffling his feet while waiting
for a young girl who, with lips pursed
in the very best mix of unpracticed concentration
and burgeoning frustration
knots the polka-dotted shoelaces on her nearly too small shoes.



Enough.