traipsing streets in the sunshine, toasted by the hot high ball, the shop trolleys

squeak-screech pleasantly, familiarly, to bring cents to their pushers peddling paper

those glue-sniffed boys that smile through thick sad eyes, they hand me free for-gossip

pages and i buy. we buy. for more cents. cents and cents make for happy eyes -

my little town so cosmopolitan, so grownup, so home to sweet mongrels