The Queue

There’s a queue at the town hall. It’s been there all week,
And it moves at the pace of a corpse with lead feet
As it snakes through the foyer and into the street,
Like a tapeworm the building can’t pass.
It’s a circus parade, but with all the fun missing,
The couple, at one end, wrapped up in their kissing,
At the other the gent in the flat cap who’s hissing
At the girl with the bubble gum lips behind glass.
There are pensioners lost inside layers of coats,
Babies screaming in pushchairs, some fat drunken bloke
Who’s stood reading a book by the late Doris Stokes.
It’s a dark, single-file pantomime.
And the bright orange skank lets her children run, screaming,
As the girl with the clouds in her head stands there dreaming,
And the clock on the wall, with its hour hand seemingly
Stolen, cuts slices from time.