By Lyn Lloyd-Smith

The Homeless Hoarder’s Hunger Book

Into the coffee shops of idle eyes
She hikes her threads of tat-torn cloth
And residue of mildew breath.
She deftly drags a bulging pram,
Brimming with her rubbish child
Of cradled, cherished, bloated bags,
And crumpled faces off the road,
Her precious offspring
From the moon-blown streets.

It’s all remains of life long gatherings,
Of the hidden stacks and stores,
Of Kit Kat wraps and jam jar lids,
The marks that filled her empty page
The jottings in her hunger book.
No place now to hide the squirrelings
Or the empty cans of scary dreams.

So swathed a while in humouring stares

She ekes the tepid, mushy drink,
With rag nail sketches in the coffee trails.
But her panic tastes like shampoo bread
The froth and fright around her tongue
And the dribbles wriggling on her restless skin.

So it’s always, ever, out again
With her hoarded scraps and her throttled heart
To the stifling day,
To the razor cut of the salty air,
To choke in the blue of the pillow sky

 

Lyn Lloyd-Smith, a member of the Gipsy Poets, was born in Northern Ireland and has lived in six different countries. For now she is at home in Encinitas, California.
This work was originally published in Magee Park Poets Anthology, 2012.