Birthday
© Suzanne Bosworth

It was somebody’s birthday
In the street where granite faces pushed along,
and where dogs ran, and polystyrene cups and chocolate wrappers,
dust and torn up bills and greasy bits of paper
whipped and whirled in wild disarray.

Balloons rioted three floors up.
And strung across the windows burnished gold
a line of cards, fluttering old as pennants against the grey old road,
declared a joyful day.