Local Centre

~

set around the perimeter of 

a small supermarket carpark,

like an angry crowd waiting 

for some shit to happen,

row upon row of identical 

angular boxes with single aspect 

sloping roofs that jag at the sky like 

the teeth of an upturned saw blade,

~

recently built and rendered in cream,

they now boast a damp smoked grey

pallor like the nearby bus shelters,

many windows seem to be dressed 

with repurposed tea towels used 

as poorly hung curtains,

~

in the middle of all this 

a supermarket where nobody

seems to use a bag, ambling 

shoppers all wearing slippers 

none wearing coats,

~

the only other signs of life, the

parched saplings, left for dead in 

their own square metre of mud

besieged by the tarmac,

but there is some colour here, 

the lime green electric scooters 

dumped where the flowers should be,

~

it’s a local centre alright

but at the centre of what?

*

© Graham R Sherwood 03/25