No bank remains on the High Street corner

Where the Yorkshire Penny once stood.

 

On Saturday afternoons

Its granite steps transformed

To a gospel preachers’ rostrum

As with spittle flecked chins they

Bellowed at sinful shoppers passing by

God’s everlasting love for them

And the assurance of perpetual burning,

For the recalcitrant

Just a heart beat away.

 

My fiancée, dumped the Apitate ring

I sent her with a perfectly pitched note

’Please forgive my daily infidelities’

In a strong box in the Penny Bank crypt.

 

A café bar lounge casino now

Squats above the vault

Where my lover

Consigned my memory to

Darkness in perpetuity,

Burying what might have been,

But never was,

World without end

Amen.