Back outside

He's high enough
above the city here
to catch the early morning sun.
He'd like to stay asleep, but
seems to wake always at dawn
when chilled light strikes the clammy window,
makeshift curtained only by
the jacket they returned to him
with other items from another life,
a stranger's wallet, contents:
scrap of paper scrawled with numbers,
keys, a folded photo,
all forgotten long ago
by him or someone else,
and two pounds 27p in coins.

Light slides through dirtfrosted glass,
curls round the jacket collar, fills
the sagging spaces at the shoulder
(and the day's beginning looks
just like its end)
lays bare his room,
its four blank walls,
cheap cupboard, mattress
damp on vinyl curling floor, no
table rug or chairs. Well anyway
it doesn't matter much;
there are no guests for him to seat.

But there are places he must go,
twice weekly, once a fortnight,
though it's hard to keep track of the days.
Outside is cold, so he stays in
in bed some days all day
and listens
to the evidence of other lives:
the sudden tides of water, choking pipes,
feet on the stairs climb nearer
and pass on. And later, shouting, fighting
or the noise she makes, the woman
messy, desperate,
when she thinks no-one can hear.

And still the hardest sounds are happiness.
The two lives into one. Imagine
how it might be, having
someone there to share it all,
to keep him safe,
it's alright,
and they would not shout or cry.
She'd be a warm, soft belly he
could press his back against
in the dead centre of the night
where he lies waiting frozen, crouched
against the endless spaces of the dark,
for day to rise before him
like another
like a different kind of wall.