Winos on Ainslee Street Rec
(After pictures by Paul Galyer)
by Tracy Booth
Among the debris strewn about this scene
I find the detail only if I look
a button lost in temper lays untouched
warmed by broken glass of brown and green
down within the litter and the muck.
The charred remains of something paper-based:
a letter of repentance to a mum
who spoiled and slapped her one remaining son
until he left, part honoured, part disgraced,
and still he leaves all he does part-done.
A rusted key left swimming between stone
misshapen from the times the lock was tried
when all I ever did was sit and cry
ready then to talk, to stop, atone
ready now to drink away the why.
A fifty-bit was spotted here today
its ownership contested in a spat
the outcome was a heads or tails comeback
from the member least in disarray
though I guess you’d have to look among the pack.