Street Performance

Copper top and grey root
Curve to brown leather,
As solitary she comes,
Bobbing,
Yawing,
On all planes,
Nodding,
Twitching,
Down the limestone gorge
To the Trocadero.
The sun’s spotlight
Catches dense lenses
In thick black rims;
The kind that come to a point
Theatrically, at the side

Feet waggling
Café to kerb,
Chin hammering
Down the years,
Chicken bone fingers
Clutch skinny shopping bags;
Pendulums,
Which swing
To the lurch
Of shoulders,
Marking
Minutes, hours, years

Frailty
Parts the Parisian dancers
As she totters through;
White socks clasp
Spindle legs,
Pink lips an island
In rucked and rippled skin,
Her lopsided waltz
Reminiscent of
Bygone puppet shows

Today’s strings quiver
Of their own accord;
The irresistible
Harmonies of age,
But who has pulled,
Twanged, tugged and
Caressed them
In times gone by,
Dowager marionette?