by Ken Head
Never mind the priests striding by black-clad,
preoccupied, enduring integrity like crowns
of thorn, this is the place on a fiery afternoon,
strolling in the shade of a colonnade as the sun-soaked
city sashays past like the brassy old vamp she is.
In air-con bars, the bling bling young hang out, eye
one another up, sip long, cool drinks and dandle
mobile ’phones while they wait for the day to be cool.
A barefoot beggar with two skinny dogs but precious
little else makes camp in a doorway. Like a doctor
checking a wound, he rolls back his trousers
to show the sores on his legs to elderly ladies
with parchment faces who’ve been to Mass
and will need maybe to drop coins in his cup.
Pigeons hustle for crusts among take-away trash
and in upstairs rooms, behind blistered shutters,
half-naked girls in stiletto heels haggle impatiently
with sweaty men over change from tens and fifties
because, as they say, the body is special.
Every fifteen minutes or so, bells in nearby churches
chime another alarm call for the soul, but when evening
finally forces the sun to its knees and shadowed
façades turn briefly topaz-gold, the flights of bright
green parakeets that squawk away to roost
don’t sound as if they give a tuppenny damn.
