Plastic bags

This poem was published in Mc Dowell M. (Ed.) 2011. Other People Other Worlds. Belconnen: Scribbler's, page 67.


1.
Subsistence is two supermarket bags
beneath the eaves. Not much less when we die.
They're safe enough there. Nobody would try
to steal recycled things. He took his fags.

Last night was minus five. The cold still nags.
While public servants, cozy in high-rise
admired the moon, the icy stars incised
him with their needles through the second-hand swag.

With collar over beanie he zigzags
past scurrying, well-clad workers for some fries,
and if a car collects him that should buy
some kind of bed; a different time that drags.

I gave him money once, change that I had.
His eyes accused, as sapphire as the sky.

2.
How sapphire is the sky? Today it sighs
with cloudy stratum, overcast and sad.

A surreptitious glance to scan a street
that seethes with vehicles; no figure there.
Then nearby, huddled on the dampened stair
a glimpse. A quickening of uneasy feet,

for discomfort hides in haste and has a neat
trick of ignoring what disturbs the air.
A problem that is best resolved in prayer.
No altruism needed. Be discreet!

Procrastination questions, jabs and gags
integrity. Shamefacedly rush by
home to complacency, at night to lie
in fretful dreaming of two plastic bags.

© Hazel S S Hall

25 May 2011