Bouncers can only stop and stare, maybe
get involved when their contract states
they've got to care, but up to that line
they wait on doorstops and thresholds,
looking for kisses from the makeup clad gold.

Smokers swell in the sea mist of the
open smoking area, they talk ideas
and travel plans, wave to no one
hoping they'll wave back again.

The bar men, the bar women and the cloakroom
attendants sing along to the songs
under tired, muttered breaths,
hoping the depth of the queue
subsides into something more serviceable.

And after?

Young ones with freshly ironed faces
**** into gutters and speak in
half-rhyme stutters, Morse code flutters that
translate into nothing more than, another beer please.

They yell as if they own the sky,
keep their echoes on rope tied to the
openings of back alleyways,
showing to her and her and her and him, his best friend, that he's
the drunkest of them all.

When she walks in
and around in those circles
looking thin in the thru-light of the windows,
she treads as if sifting flour from great level heights,
though her paws are murderous talons
ripping fluid in the gallons
from the stomachs of garden-hedge
prey, hiding scared and low in the undergrowth,
their breath appearing invisible- it's not there.