Gypsy

Second in the new strange series



Not the Usual Gypsy


She came from behind
a group of shoppers
like a left arm bowler,
took my hand in the kind

of grip you expect,
prior to being conned.
You’re going on holiday
in the next few days,

without your wife,
but your mother will be there.
Aha, I am about to say,
with a rueful smile,

but she shakes her head,
I know she’s dead.
And long since.
You’re tired of work, she says.

I am fishing
for a fiver to swop
for a piece of wishful thinking
but she tells me I won’t

ever have much money.
In that alley beside TJ Hughes,
I wonder: surely then, love.
In her grey eyes nothing


but people passing, as if tipped
off the end of the world.