Croydon boys. They crowd the counter shouting
‘take away price’ with the open outcry
of Wall Street bankers, while babes — frenetic —
prove Happiness can’t be bought, spewing fries
through their milkshaked wails of discontent. Yet,
your golden arches once winked at glamour.
Marbled floors that flurry, gilded handrails,
Ziegfeld steps that fleckerl skywards, o’er…
In those days, when you had ashtrays, our Sylv
would glide across your ballroom sacheting
sugar, her stirring stick like a dance cane,
her wrist a flamingo’s neck. For coffee!
Cigarette hovering beside her head
———————–like a hummingbird
nails pincered, she would pick at pay-check crumbs.

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From Magma 85, Poems for schools



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