The trickle
The toilet by the tables in the smoke-
dark snooker club was shut - a sign saying “Closed
for Cleaning” stayed in place for several hours
and so the lager-topped break builders forced
to find relief elsewhere told staff that it
was just not good enough enough enough.
The snooker club below the cinema
was shut on Sundays, so a crowd of men
would gather on its steps with stacks of cans
of Becks, from sinking moon through scolding bells
to heavy hints from spurned street lights to drink
one week into the next, the next, the next.
The cinema which faced the park was not
renowned for cleanliness or friendliness;
nevertheless, when suddenly it closed
for sixteen days, then opened boasting live
sex shows, there was a buzz of local loss
and letters of disgust, disgust, disgust.
The park which marked the start point of the high
street, though not noticeably beautiful,
was much appreciated by new mums,
street drunks and dog walkers, so when it was
replaced by flats, the neighbourhood was not
nor would be quite the same the same the same.
The large department store down from the park
was, in its day, the envy of the rest
of the suburban high streets leading straight
into the city’s heart, so when it shut
it felt as if the fabric of the place
they’d come to love was torn was torn was torn.
The toilet in the snooker club was closed,
they said, because someone detected, first,
a crack, a little crack, and then the crack
begat a trickle, just a trickle, but
the trickle in the city changed its course
and trickled up and up and up and up.
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