For the first and last time

For the first and last time
Life seems angelic, pure, unknowing.
Foreseen, all the pasts of this stinking flesh.
Passed by the contents of the gutter,
Crying
Utter tears of pity, then self-pity.
Urine-stinking bus home, urban lights wink,
But not at me.
Faces in the window, discussions, discursions,
Games, fallacies, want to turn and face them.
Time to get out of the bus.
Eyes meet. Messages between strangers.
Do I give compassion, do I patronise?
Mock?
I cry on my bed.
I cry until all gravity is cried out.
The night again, my only mistress.
Black lady in a shimmering, shrouded dress.
The lady who waits.

Birmingham, summer 1989.

[This one's about a bad journey home from the centre of Manchester one
night in 1988 - The contents of the gutter was a psychiatric patient
begging for money - The strangers on the bus were a crabby old queen and
two rent boys he'd picked up. I was very drunk and on my own.]