Elizabeth Bay Road

Fruit machines accept all cards for very punter
there’s an addict doorframed, they punctuate the street
as in a Florence gallery when restorers airbrush out
aureole and child to foreground areolae puckered
for remedial teething, too pure or too stoned
for lewdness, this Beatrice-free opening
whose proven images are made not marred by copywriters’
truant and genius ink! And now commercial artists
bring the day to consciousness or coffee, at least sunlight
coaxes brown meniscus eyes that swill in time to waiters’ hips
which anchor-leg a relayed pilgrimage from Kenya,
scent of Africa upmarket from U.S. Sailors
whose sleeveworn hearts are just the boon
a plein-air florist needs: Her birthmark
ups the stakes: should I tell you what she feels?
Or say a foil of jaywalk zebras plead panache
as if their skin complaint might be the next hot topic
for homeopaths? That kills the conversation
since you can’t fit them on the side of a bus, or the back of a cab.