"Come here!" The shopping mall boy's call, In a cold draught of disinfectant, is disposed Of in the brickwork along the graffitied wall. Every puddle of the covered concrete walkway Has been walked though by the bustling shoppers, Whose wheel tracks from the water start the path, Past the carol singers, and the hollow presents on the tree, To where their trolleys will be left around the town. The uneven paving slabs hide the careless water That splashes far up the high nylon heels. On this night of lowly boys in an unholy place, The skateboards of the shopping mall pals Break up with their abusive treatment, as if The concrete colour of their long white laces Had reached into their very souls, so they confused flight With leaping kerbstones and making a noise like friends. Mary and Joseph arrive in this Bethlehem. The pubs are one midnight mass. No room At the inn. After the hark from herald angels The electric sleighbells fade and dim. The skateboard boys bring their flocks into the Hymn And in this contaminated shelter, twinkle with starlight As the child by the hardy shrubs flowerbed, Is tucked in one trolley and lays down his sweet head.
© John the Poet.