Saturday Morning

And so the city sits. Waiting for its evening, the drugs dotting around different fists; a fistful of dollars here, a bin full of condoms there; already somewhere, the vomiting down the side of the stairs, to the sound of 60s guitars booming from a neighbour; already the waking to the sight of yawning or grinning stranger, their ejaculate or blood drying in a duvet, or smeared down the side of a bed; sex dotting the city the way starlight should; drugs crawling over the city like a vortex of ants in the vicinity of frothing drains; and a million-and-one pleasured, or to-be-pleasured, human brains.

And so this is youth. Fingers in soggy pies, glitter in cherubic eyes. Love, shouting from a loud speaker. Hope, in every hello like a silent order. Libido, poised like a mechanical spring, waiting only to be sprung. The newspapers line the local shop like souvenirs of totems, relics of a political tribe whose clichés echo around the dinner parties to this day, somehow. And the TV or radio frequencies carry on, only a remote click away, their faint communes of football experts, or poetry knowers, or therapy speakers, or ravers or rebels or, or, or, or or or or or

It says nothing to the dull, quiet men in chess clubs, shrugging their shoulders at bright buildings, proud names. It says nothing to women knitting shawls in pre-war cottages. It says nothing to mothers in suburbs, wondering when the next phone call from their daughter or son, full with clichés of friends and careers, will come. To the old churches, where men kneel to weep at a looming virgin, it says: open up your ancient books to close down this whole new world.

Saturday at eleven, and the city stirs for shops and brunch. Like cigarettes, the fire and smoke of clichés are ready in bright, round eyes. A shivery fist in youth tidies a rented room, waiting for evening, or the internet on Monday morning.