Coal Dust Street

And he saw it now and then the lamp lit row of houses that stretched beyond the eye houses where men who dug black slept and drank when they could ageless cobbles pried on men who fought in the street over want, women and work while little men sons played foolish games of childhood daughter women with prams mothered their plastic dolls and the wives gossiped about young Sally who had a belly by John Stout the butcher boy the reverend Ellis knew all the stories and chapters of life in this coal dust street he birthed them baptised them married and buried them and the street was quiet no vehement voices tonight as the deed of death slipped over the cobbles and gripped a sleeping soul.