May contain traces

( a poem )

I didn't make it back last night. It's first thing

as me and low-hung packs of clouds march hard, aligned,

past the greying people mugging misery for pennies;

the bloodless wet wanderers,

ones who I wonder if they ever eat

who no one wants to be.

Gotta get the city to open her legs, though maybe

not these streets; bejewelled with sinus oysters

and jellyfish-shape piss stains,

and (like my exes in me), violent reminders of ghosts

posing as splatter shadows from long-gone vomit

rain-washed away on pavements.