and the lamplighters come, one by one, putting their
iron nightcaps over the dawdling gaslights, as the morning
peels the stars from its back. weathervanes pointing their
black, accusatory fingers like viewers of a hanging, and the streets
lie in their purple veils, doorways yawning, footfall
in the alleys and the thoroughfares – the shh-ing
and readying that comes backstage before a rising curtain.
the flowergirls shuffle out, faces bowed, their basketfuls
of sloop-tongued blossoms, clustered and gossiping like busybodies –
they were gathered in the early morning, bunched and congested
in their meadows like snores, picked by rough hands and serenaded
by labor songs, their heads nodding in the baskets like
prisoners in paddywagons. the dark meridian coronating
the horizon, sneezing in their bushels, they are rudely stolen
from their stems – kidnapped, they fly their
trodden skirts.
and now, into the scrubbed london streets, they stick their tongues out
at each other, as the flowergirls haggle. some of the blossoms
still budded and knotted, unfulfilled as promises, they lie
at the bottom of the basket, swooning – maidens in the heat,
with no one to catch their weak and toppling bodies.
the more sensible posies flirt their brown-edged
petals, knowing this may be their
last chance.
pressed to noses, strewn in gutters – by mid-morning,
the flowergirls holding their warm coins, having half-emptied their baskets.
and the remaining flowers shivering, wonder
if they're next, oh please,
let me be next.
