ALAN JENKINS
Street Life
I come home at all hours; all hours she recieves
her callers, her gentlemen friends, upstairs.
In the street, a car draws up, she breaks into a foolish little run.
I know her. Even in the rawest weather, she wears
no tights or stockings, leaves three buttons of her blouse undone.
Seeing me, calling, she comes over. We are alike, we share
the same sad, comical fear of being caught
together on our corner, of our long views falling
short, of being caught, of being caught.
Flirting with me, she fiddles with her hair, her shoes,
makes something up when I ask her how she got the bruise
that cascades down her cheek, the purples, reds and blues
of a fruit tart; the colours, almost, of my glans that night
I paid her twenty quid and pushed it up her, dry and tight.
From The Drift (Chatto & Windus, 2000)
Also available from Amazon.co.uk:
A Short History of Snakes: New and Collected Poems (Grove Press, 2001)
The Little Black Book (Cargo Press, 2001)
Harm (Chatto & Windus, 1994)
In the Hot House (Chatto & Windus, 1988)