The Working Girl

The winter cold

The coffee shop closed

The days ideas

Have all been supposed.

Lights in the street,

Fog in the air,

The young working girl

With dew in her hair.

Her hat and her coat,

Her quick leather walking,

The sullen cold faces

Of people not talking.

Through quieting streets

And saddening lanes,

The city in mourning

For the day’s dead remains.

The lettuce is rotting,

Crates empty and tossed

Papers are scattered

From where they were lost.

Homeless are huddled

On bad cardboard beds,

Soiled old blankets

Are covering their heads.

The cold is so bitter

Too cold for the wren

As cold as if it were now

The last days of men.

Too cold for creatures unearthly

Not ghosts, not spirits or ghouls

No place for the dead of Hades

No place for the wise or for fools.

No sounds but of trains,

Not poetry read, not music played

No joy for the night,

No happiness displayed.

The theatres all locked,

The stage-hands in bed,

The roads are all empty

The traffic lights red.

The winter cold

The coffee shop closed

The days ideas

Have all been supposed.

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