I used to see them as a boy:

Hanging around on street corners,

Loitering with intent,

Picking off the ice cream vans, one by one.

They pandered to the masses,

Displayed all their wares:

Scalpels, sedatives and inexpensive love.

They were the last resort, the leaky policy,

The get-out-of-jail card, for one more week.

Two for the price of one, sometimes.

‘Lie down here, Sir/Madam;

You won’t feel a thing.’

I thought they were Doctors.

 

Their minds were in it,

But their hearts were elsewhere:

On tax deductions,

Some serious chrome curves,

Backhanders,

A leg-up for their kiddies.

 

In another life, they could have been artists,

Sprinkling colour on flowered fields,

Or squeezing beauty from slums and bomb craters,

Or penning rhymes that would fall

Headfirst, from the end of verses,

Like raindrops.

 

(From "Bedside Days", 2019)