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BLACK BUTTERFLY
POETRY, PROSE AND PAINTINGS
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NUMBER 1 BRITANNIA STREET
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Today he found sixpence. Not shiny bright, Queen's headed sixpence. The sixpence he stooped to pick up was old and battered, tarnished and thin but sixpence still, enough to buy a line at Number 1 Britannia Street.
Yesterday, because it was sunny he shuffled down Belvoir Street, sat in Town Hall Square, watched the man paint the fountains, gold and black, found a dog end to smoke, then made his way back to the alley behind Woolworths.
Today is wet rain soaks through his layers of grease rich clothes freezing his skin, making him itch as angry vermin bite. But today he found sixpence, enough to buy a line at Number 1 Britannia Street.
In the morning he lies cold and stiff in the alley behind Woolworths, stinking of piss, his own, someone else's, his rigid hand clasped around the neck of a brown bottle
But today he might find six pence so it's worth moving, worth the effort of breathing and being. Today might be the day he finds another sixpence enough to buy a line at Number 1 Britannia Street. |