The Doorway

 

The Doorway

Faint breezes puff impotently at the heavy metal security gate,

but only rattle the loosely latched wooden door behind;

two currawongs, couched high in council's potted jacarandas,

warble their musical morning alarums in perfect counterpoint,

their echoes eerily climb the graffiti clad concrete stairwell

cross sensory paths with aromatic coffee and crunchy bacon

sliding stealthily under the door, wafting out to the unlit mall;

lazily, dawn drags the dank cloak of darkness from the doorway.

Despair, in various guises, played, worked and slept here last night;

uniformed hope and charity did their very best to coddle fallen kin,

but even now, as dawn's first light floods the cold concrete floor,

one shivering legacy of the dark side's frantic trade, curls up

foetus tight in unconscious mental bondage amongst the bed mates

of her addiction, discarded syringes, heroin caps, tablets and the

crumpled condoms, her credit card in the alternate economic society;

poignantly, her life now poised on the point of a state issued needle.