Empty shops and too many
estate agents’ boards jutting out
from the spruced-up borders,
eye-level only when you lift
your chin, like the tourists
come to see the tapestry,
history housed in a post-
modern construction,
subversive in itself, and oh
the irony! You would think
they’d make space, just
one tiny corner for the living
local artists –

perhaps when they’re dead
or counting back
from ten to zero,
a memory test conducted
on the way to Next
and its faceless mannequins.
Staring.

Puir auld sowl,
she got nae further than nine.

Shuffling over the town trail
embellishments, the same
base brown metal used for the drains
where the surgically-enhanced carer spat
her gum and we joined the hardened
dots on the tarmac, wondering
how long it would be before
someone tore down
all the floral displays,
took off with that blooming
fox on a bike.

Back home we picture it on social media,
where once again they’re talking toilets.

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