Closing

Outside the supermarket at 10pm
the last shoppers with bulging orange bags
bob off into the dim lit car park,
the trees breathing calmly out there

like sleepy kids around the sodium lamps,
attendants pushing stacks of trollies home,
wind getting under the first night busses
as they pass the carpet warehouse.

Before the sliding doors a homeless
walks a puppy on a rainbow lead
around in little circles, tugging it
as it gets floppy or hearing something
points its head slickly into the dark.

The man quietly asks for change
as people bustle past him from the shop,
when he gets some the dog jumps up
to lick the stranger's hand, whines
as the homeless tugs him down again.

The stranger is brisk, straightening
a ruffled shirt-sleeve, making off
for his old Ford estate out there
beyond the recycling bins, its floor
messy with bottles and clumps of hair.

The last customer, an obese woman
in a red duffel coat whose puffy eyes
give her a constant crying look
waddles quickly past the tramp until
she is just a sidling awkward blob

in distant pain of orthopaedic shoes.
The shutters of the store front crawl
down. A couple kiss by the cash machines.
There is the constant sound of overnights
from City airport, pushing into the sky.

A flier stuck to the ground by the bins:
"Never forget how beautiful you are."