A tramp, whose age was a bad guess, had pale blue eyes of twenty-twenty,

and was joined by knotted umbilical to a lean black dog, a doggerel dog.

Their knife-edge bodies sliced the bitter wind in the season of goodwill

as each step along the precinct cost dear in the land of plenty.

Toward the foreign tree cut from its nature and coloured electric,

no purpose in their traipse other than for the sake of it.

The crowd was thinning and

corporate main frames were slowing down.

Garbage spilling from sated bins was nothing if not openly

eclectic.

The lovers were young and fair, the man tall and she so pretty.

He was laden, arms forced akimbo with festive trappings.

She tugged his open coat around him, her breath misty in the frigid air

and on tiptoe she pulled his

lips to hers. Love in the bright cold city.

They sat, gift-wrapped, on a bench, their passion such a thrill.

The clothes of the tramp were old and thin with a button here and there.

He shivered, on the inside, so deep it tingled the bone.

The dog was just raw, its

thinning fur no match for the

icy chill.

On leaving, the girl looked back, like she had heard her name.

From the man she took a

carrier; he protested but was no match for her

and she enticed him gently away, the River Island bag left behind.

"For me?" The tramp asked no one. "Go on. You're used to shame."

Cold as ice, man and dog circled once the electric tree.

Above them, a darkening sky newly pricked with frosted

star lights.

Closer. Closer still. "Don't wait too long. Has anyone else seen?"

A policeman hurried away to

a radio call. The tramp was home free.

His frozen hand reached inside the bag. He remembered a name Kashmir.

In the stinging freeze, last year's sweater smelled of Man at Dior

and rigid fingers softened in

the quality folds.

No longer new, yet, on the

doggerel dog, its warmth was still sincere.

David Storer, Totton