Startled by swiftness of the grievous downturn,
he stood looking at his terraced house, once warm,
once welcoming and in his hands were bulging bags,
and his children playing their games on tech screens.
Weary from work he held the bag from the Foodbank,
and felt again the creaking of a body underfed and
——-
prayed the government would not abandon them.
——-
Entering the cold hall, no cooking smells to warm him,
his children already huddled in their coats and blankets,
watching their hour of the tele, all computers traded
for cash to pay dark electricity for a moments necessity
and his wife gone to hospital for a long awaited treatment
her beautiful body broken by the corruption of cancer.
——
Bubbling beans filled the damp smelling house with joy
as the children ran to collect clean plates and cutlery
tummies rumbling with juices racing to collect goodness,
and send it tumbling around their cold wasting bodies,
He set out their meals of bread and beans and craved
his own stomach shrunk by the steely, power grabbers.
——–
Sitting together in the dimness of street lamp lit room,
he held her frail hands in his own brick roughened,
and together they calculated what was left while
a smart metre tricked them and became a liability,
she besought him to eat bread and beans to be able
to continue to have the means to avoid their liquidity.
