She knocks back invitations to see
a thousand stamp collections,
as if she's knocking back tequila

you feel you ought to know her
but she's covered in the shadows
that seem to follow in her footsteps
as she wanders through the
half lit streets she knows.

and the market men throw streamers
as she threads through empty barrows
drinking coffee that she borrowed from
the blind man in the alley and
the morning never enters in her eyes

and her name is lit by lanterns on a hundred
deafened doorways which shout
of streetwalkers and gypsies selling
trinkets to collectors,
where the day feeds on the lonely
and the sad sit in the libraries
in the dust filled seats of centuries
reading tales set down in history
as if it's history that lives in
ancient books.

But her chance is soon upon her and
she seizes on the options
but there's only stamp
collections and the offers of an album
in their eyes.