the cold squeezes out
every drop of these heavy
lemon-juice teardrops;
while my hunger has me so light
that my inflated thoughts
carry me above townhouse smoking chimneys
and through the angry grey
bubble-bursting clouds
into airborne pedestrian prison.

plagued by corkscrew aching pain
in my back,
from sitting on milk-crate chairs
and writing on slippery concrete stairs
outside the train-station
of deafening smokestack'd lightning shrieks;
my nerves are shot
with eggshell fragility.

the stabbing cold wind
spikes and stabs
through the barbed-wire scars
of my jeans and jerseys
leaving me twitching,
and jolting
with indecipherable handwriting
on crucifix crossed t's
and grave holes
on the misplaced dots of tired I.

I smiled at a walking-stick man today
after I underlined a poem
at the finish-line full-stop,
and his granite frown
transformed into a wet clay lampshade
shining smiling face -
glowing from his kisser
to his tapping toes
with the singing spring in his step.

I passed a sobbing dollhouse girl
with melting ice-cream
dripping onto her stockings
and splashing her buckled-shoes,
who forgot all about
her spilt milky dessert,
when I offered her a NikNak chip
from my 10 cents orange disco packet.

my desolation dissolved
in those forgotten human moments
of tribal days;
where my joy returned
flushing colour into my cheeks
and the bleak winter
burned with life.