And the washing still out drying

the day got up with a hang-over
birds played hide and seek
with a boy’s flung stones

behind a window, a pentagram’s scrawled on a wall
in red but it’s saying nothing

Saturday’s whores grow ripe with sweat and sin
On the cobbles at gap-toothed windows

a mongrel scratches its balls
whines for a wished-for bone

from under the pub door cigarette smoke seeps out
the smell of whisky and spit flows over the evening

Jeannie Froubister didn’t throw herself off a bridge
or swallow a bottle of bleach

she met a murderer in an Embro street
such a nice man too, with perfect hands and manners

and salaried, you can’t trust anybody
strangled, and the washing still out drying