WELSH GIRL IN A SILVER DRESS

the cab pulled up
in early daylight,
right on (or maybe just off)
the harrow road,
with her (a curvy nurse, a dirty mouth),
her friend (an indistinctness),
me,
& my heated visions
of chemical-tasting sex
with either one of them,
didn't matter which.

but of course,
upstairs
in her narrow flat, they
didn't change
out of their little bits
of LOVE RANCH glitter
into something comfortable, and they
didn't change
into people who noticed I was even there,
into people I could really imagine
wanting to talk to
or be with
or think about
on the other side
of the bitterbright haze
of the pills
I passed them
by way of paying
for their time,
for the warmth of the living room,
for the mug of sweet tea,
for the having somewhere better to be
than outside the locked gates
of victoria station,
aching for the first trains to start up
and take me home
to a comedown sunday,
and too many questions.

so when it got late enough, I was off,
lighter by three red-and-yellow capsules
and the taxi fare,
wondering
if they even knew my name, because
I don't think they ever asked and
I might have never said, and maybe they
were like
who the bloody hell was that
the moment
I was out of there.

but the funny thing is,
it's, what, twenty years later
and I'm thinking
about them now, certain
that neither one of them
thought about me
ever again.

it's not important.