Woman on Bus

A tolerantly faithful catering sallow, her:
Once married, that forty-something restless stir,
As though no more could anything un-Woolworths-bag-bust
The tired need to seem somewhat a decent crust.

Late blooming dye, not millennium-smart,
A sales nose absently scrying shopfront art:
Shoes that are sharply thrifty round the toe,
A dress that was carefree two children ago.

Injections, instructions, a shortage of blood,
The colour of tinned, processed, low calorie mud.
"We're sorry, but you may lose most of your hair":
A note to the milkman, since Robert's not there.

Into every suburb a SCUD missile may fall.
A child may just shrivel in defiance of it all.
This methadone shrine exacts a tiresome tithe -
A sirloin of frozen knee from Ashford to Hythe.

That bald crackpot in front is heard to declare:
"There are clouds, there are, spreading their legs in the air!"
A gynaecologist sun gives one last cold poke.
Across fields drifts an unidentifiable smoke.