The Yellow Digger

The railway tracks hum all night like a drunk’s heartbeat, and come seven, the yellow bastard starts gnawing the street—teeth filthy, breath of diesel and broken stone—ripping up clean concrete that never hurt nobody, hunting pipes so some engineer can feed his kids, pay the rent, keep the whole sad circus rolling.

Me, I’m curled under a coat that smells like yesterday’s vomit, trying to squeeze one more hour of black sleep out of the world, because tomorrow’s just another bottle and another fist in the gut, and the only thing between me and the river is this thin, rotten mattress.

The digger doesn’t care.

It laughs iron laughs and keeps chewing, and somewhere a baby cries, somewhere a wife counts pennies, and somewhere else I piss warmth down my own leg listening to the city eat itself alive again, same as always, same as it’ll do tomorrow, God’s own hangover hammering nails into this cunting skull of the world.

dentist tomorrow,
a tube from Whitechapel,
need to sober up.