You don’t want a job. Who does?
Who wants to be dumb enough
not to know that every slave
wears a collar? Collars and ties
tell themselves that because
they can slow down at the lights
and throw an empty can
at the losers waiting for the bus
they must be well up the ladder
they grease with their tongues.

But you need a job; starving
doesn’t suit. And walking the streets
in battered brown shoes
you see why you need that collar.
See the man playing imaginary guitar
on Button Street, a pick away
from where The Beatles bought
their first guitars. Or the woman
crouching in a dog-pissed doorway
rocking to an inaudible tune,
trying to remember the baby
they snatched before the cord
was cut. Or the desperate man
staring down his face
in the shoe-store window. Cheap lace-ups
for the interview; 29.99 a pair.