A RAINY DAY, AN ELDERLY MAN SLIPS
AS HE ENTERS THE BOOKSHOP

His smooth-soled shoe slid
from the wet metal
W set in

the pavement, that leg
sent sideways across
him, its momentum

tipping him backwards,
unready instinct
panicking his hands

into a twin grasp
at insubstantial
air, his body’s skewed

architecture framed
for that moment by
the shop’s sliding doors

Y

She pushes twins,
lets her flip-flops
flap the pavement

while he talks to
his mother on
the mobile. The

mid-morning sun
sweats the small of
her back, wetting

his fingers as
he hitches up
the waistband of

her leggings to
cover the taut
Y of her thong

BACK TO LIFE

In the aisles of Everything’s £1
a grandmother, 45, stops and

stares towards the till, eyes narrowing,
presses two fingers to her ear. As

shoppers squeeze their baskets past her she
kicks back the wheellocks on her hooded

pushchair and draws a chewed tape from the
walkman on her hip. Scowling, fingers

wedged in the spools, she starts to wind the
slack which spirals towards the shop’s floor