Woman in a Flowered Dress

She works the stairs, like a beetle caught in flowers,
The kerbs are palisaded to her legs,
Her bosom leans her forwards, but her neck is stiffer:
It seems she searches cracks for easy coins.
Breath scoops her lips, as turf falls back to rapids;
The grey hair, permed, withers on china-white;
The buttocks foist an earthquake on a garden.

Behind her, though, a boy loiters on the stairs:
As if he bit, his teeth are fast in laughter.
He’s a good boy not to let it bomb her body;
I hope he’ll find it funny all his life.
As for me, I wait politely for the steps to clear:
Only ten years older, my paunch begins to tug
And snag a little, like a caught-up sleeve,
And stoop my head, as if to look for money.