the 1940s are small pictures shedding skin in shades of brown
old names
printed on the back in faded fountain pen ink
with strange printed E's and G's
they stand posed like a line of brown toads
in cricket clothes
with big ears
and hawk noses
in carpet trousers pulled up to here
their old stories of dream bungalow estates
ramble on to West End homos
and
they
live by catalogues of slacks and brown plastic attachments
the survivors are smaller than their pictures
their eyes have developed a wet twinkle with time
soon they will lie under blue tarpaulin in tin boxes
and
take a dumb-porter ride
past my office
where
i
eat
toast
and think - i want to buy new brown trainers
for them
to be burnt in
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