Author’s Note: I frequently travel between Suffolk and Essex by bus, stopping by at McDonald’s for a cuppa in the early hours, and this poem highlights my concerns about the increasing numbers of homeless people sleeping rough on Colchester’s High Street; a legacy of the Conservative Party’s neglect of UK’s welfare state.
*****
Wrap me in;
keep the gap closed.
This is my space,
on the pavement,
in the High Street,
by the window.
My space.
Pirate flag.
Plastic cutlass.
Open book.
Marking
my page,
and
my space …
next to
and part of
McDonald’s.
A multi-millionaire.
A McDonald’s man,
with a little bit of pavement –
to call my own..
Buses stop,
start,
leave.
Taxis double-up,
huddle into lay-bys,
and clock up time.
People appear, pass and
move on.
I’m still here, in my space,
immobile,
secure. No drafts. No worries.
Wrap me in
to
my space.