Walking across
the corroded
car-park concrete
between the
Worthing Station
and the road
I come to the
peaked block
of low-rise flats
on the corner
which that pub
since demolished
once occupied
and remember
working there
employed by the dealer
in Es, speed and acid
who used to
manage the bar
and we were
having a lot
of sex, running around
the deserted
hotel corridors
above the pub
laughing and tripping
and playing games
and now
I’ve passed
there, walking
along a
row of shops
with lorries
to my left
grinding seriously
elsewhere
and in one of
the shop windows
a group
of marionettes
is set up, their
jointed
limbs lank
from strings
wide awake eyes
mouths grinning
as I pass
like the memory
of acid.