The Railway Station and the Sistine Ceiling

Just possible to ignore a place like this.
The palm, the man, the two men unloading
the removal van, the crushed paper cups.

The girl with two nose rings, leather skirt
and the stunned wandering of her eyes
out of Eden. And her talked-out bloke

staring down at the unlit cigarette he
holds as if he'll write with it, something
burning out into us or back into him.

But it's there hidden in the man's case
at Trastevere, where the junkies work
for money not the stuff, it's the stuff

makes them vomit floor self-portraits in the
everywhere-at-once light from high ceilings,
caught between their aspiration and sheer

hunger for the flatterers and small-time
wonders, half-price parachutes in their arms.
When it's handed over to them by the man

who looks like he never looks like himself
they vacillate: over-alive and nearly dead
unless the sirens flat-line in their arms

carrying them down. As if they are up
there painted on the ceiling and fall on us
who think we've kept intact, unpunctured.

But I feel my safe life floating in me
like a speech. It's prickly and defensive.
I get no comfort even if I hear its words.