In the Brighton

West Street Odeon

Costas franchise

 

the three-piece

family to my left

– a mother and two kids –

 

quite calm before

some animated

candy-floss maybe

 

and the sea the

colour of blue

jade on a Chinese

 

Emperor’s ceremonial

armour, visible

shifting its surface at the

 

plate-glass window

past the counter,

while I read R.S. Thomas

 

– and he takes a

pretty bleak view of

our human prospects –

 

between his poems

emphasising the

extreme brevity,

 

checking the

Grindr App for

no-strings meets or

 

possibly more,

the selection of men

apparently endless.