Any Bench in Hyde Park
by Alyson Dayus
She checks the trees before she sits,
gathers her skirt with a vigilant hand -
its battered folds might reveal something priceless,
when left to the icy wind. She spits
when she talks, but nobody hears her mutter
pigeons do what pigeons do.
FROZEN PEAS, 20 X 1LB. Her world
sits snug between her legs like a cello
or like the man she once wanted,
a Trilby-topped banker who counted paper
dreams but never forgot the ones that mattered.
His fingerprints still warm her ripened thighs;
skin no longer taut enough to blush recalls
a name she once chanted, head thrown back,
a name her lips have long forgotten.
Impassive, they hurry past her; a man
in his funeral suit, a girl with hair like
dull tuppences. A pallid youth scribbles
desperate affection, picturesque amongst
the daisies and overflowing dustbins.
Her crow’s feet creep skyward, following
the flutter; again, she begins to mutter,
pigeons do what pigeons do.