Gift
Dark from four, because of the rawness
I buy plain chicken and some chocolate,
turn back the way I’ve come
to the pavement shrine of himself
beside an alcove where drunks piss,
fumble the sandwich handing it to him,
“Here, have this.”
One week on, do the same thing again
because I can’t clean the oceans
or give glaciers back their tongues,
can’t give him chicken and chocolate
every time he’s there when I walk past,
camouflaged for the wrong jungle.
“All right, pal?” he asks.
Brian China lives in Leicester. You can follow him @brianachina on Twitter.