This is taken from Raymond Antrobus's first collection 'Shapes & Disfigurements'

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Conversation With A Homeless Man On Shoreditch High Street

She tells me Mark is coming over. He’s my gardener. He’s deaf and dumb.

I look at her as if she might be talking about me.

Well, she says he lip reads and responds to everything with his thumbs up. He can laugh though, he laughs all the time, I'm quite fond of him. He’s coming over to dig a grave in the garden for Hollie. She was put down this morning; she had a good life though. Say, have you ever dug a grave? Hard work that. Makes you really respect gravediggers.

I never feel like a poet around Grandma, I rarely know what to say.

I can’t lie she says, I’ve been crying all night. I’m going to miss Hollie. Hope I don’t get too many lonely moments without her. I ate chicken earlier and couldn't help but feel strange to be mourning Hollie while eating a dead animal. You get to be old as me and life still surprises you. I hope when I get to heaven I get my young body back. See that picture of me on the mantelpiece? That’s me at 22. I was in love with a man called Keith. He was so handsome, taller than you. Always wore grey jackets and trimmed his moustache. I’d say kissing a man without a moustache is like eating a boiled egg without salt. He took that photo, I’m smiling because he asked me a naughty question, I shan’t repeat it. You don’t appreciate beauty when you’ve got it. You shouldn’t put so much pride into things that fade. Life is full of sad things and happy things. The sad things are important; they give you compassion, which in the end gives you more to be happy about. That’s just my opinion though. How’s your poetry going?

I tell her it’s ok.

she says don’t you find the more you talk to people the more you realise how important words are? I used to work for an organisation called Talking Books. We’d read books to blind people. Each book took a while to read out loud but it did so much for them. One man I used to read to told me, when you live in the dark your only light is a good story. Are you hungry?

I tell her I am.

she asks

Do you want to finish the chicken?

I say I’m ok, thanks.

Raymond Antrobus

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