Owen Jones

You’ll find him standing sentry outside the bookies,

his reflection in the Oxfam window:

a roll-up and a cup of plastic tea.

His dreams are scribbled on papers in his pockets.

Or you’ll see him, nights, in the kebab shop:

he swallows your drunk chat, counts your money

carefully into the till, ladles chilli sauce,

ekes out enough for the next day’s races.

Some remember the boy he was:

how he could play off scratch at seventeen,

the trial he had for Cardiff City.

Others mention his best mate and his missis.

2.15: he flicks his fag out, goes in again,

where his clothes, his cars, his years have already been.

No one would notice his smile as the door swings.

A crisp packet rustles its applause in the wind.