A Sign of the Times
 
Eschewing shop doors fragrant with piss,
on monopoly-board street names,
potential has been spotted
in concrete scrub, size of a double grave.
Two small domed tents have,
tidied themselves into the plot
exactly filled its contours, as if by design.
Only neighbours, hospitals and office blocks
so footfall-blind to everything except
email and cancer’s imperative .
 
As to the structure’s residents,
single or double occupancy,
they are tight lipped ,
nocturnal perhaps, evading detection
like coy animals, their comings and goings caught
possibly on CCTV cameras.
Significantly no makeshift appeal for pocket or purse dregs,
preferring instead to grow roots that drill down
through the concrete fast as Pampas.
Evinced by a small handmade sign,
reminiscent of those fashioned for the fallen.
‘This is my world’ accosts the observer
like an art installation
with its multiple meanings-

Fiona Sinclair

If you have any thoughts about this poem, Fiona Sinclair   would like to hear them.