Rat

At night I skulk the city, climbing into bins.

Headfirst, legs scrape the brim and I fall

Right in.

The lid shuts above me and I’m encased in its

Womb-like darkness, a dirty foetus in its

Putrid mother’s carcass.

A squalid monk, in his unholy chapel,

I nestle in between a nappy

And a rotten apple.

My eyes see naught but shadows, visual static, hence,

I leave them both to starve, and with my nose

I feast on scents.

A tapestry of odours drapes around me like a blanket;

 A filthy prince of darkness at a

Fetid nasal banquet.

Fag butts, sodden teabags, curdled milk and onion peelings,

Week-old salmon! Oh! You send my

Nostrils reeling!

In every dustbin there exists an olfactory tale;

I’ll decipher, from its contents, if the owner

Is a male,

The scents create a picture of the lives behind closed

Doors – are they single? Old or youthful? Are they rich or

Are they poor?

The butcher’s bin is gory, if the meat’s been there for

Hours, but the bins behind the hospital

Smell of life, and death, and 

Flowers.