It was Friday night after 10. Only

taxis and buses prowl the Reading Streets.

On my way to the station my steps

tell me that story about a lovesick

Russian Count and the aim of his affection,

Natasha, who would shoot him in the last line

of the poem. I was passing bars and clubs

where bouncers stood like crows in black overcoats

joking about small brutalities

and the power they had over queues

and restricted areas. The young people

thought the weather belonged to another

season. Some stood in huddled groups on the damp

pavement their cigarettes trembling like beaks

of hummingbirds after the nectar of lips.

Turning into Friar Street a tramp emerges

from a doorway, approaches a girl

ahead of me and points at the thread

of material that is her skirt. She walks on

patting her hair, looking at her phone

while the tramp mutters “cunt, fucking cunt”

and fumbles in his pocket.

A boy joins the girl and they draw further

away and they walk away a Russian Count

and his lover Natasha who is pulling out a gun.