8 a.m. Friday

Christmas shopping madness
is well under way.

Cars shuffle quietly at their posts
in the darkened corral.

Somewhere behind me
a hospital door softly swishes.

Empty trolleys rumble in.

Full ones roll out.

Gulls scrap over the jetsam
of the night,
oblivious to the
plunder and savagery
20 yards away.

Under diffused hospital light
the faecal smell of Christmas songs
wafts down the aisles.

Back at the door
an alarm
pierces the morning.

Cars shuffle nervously.

The security man looks up,
confused.

A non-event.

The gulls settle back down
to bad-tempered bickering.

A pink corpse
rolls sickeningly from its trolley.

Packets tumble after it
onto flooded tarmac.

Strain shows on sombre faces.

Under the silver morning light
the sodium abruptly quits.

I eye the station,
count my blessings
and offer a prayer.