Ruby’s

 

Ruby’s

 

 

You make your escape mid-morning –

pictured the carnage you’ll be cleaning before they set to

chopping fruit, several self-composting kilos

for Saturday’s protracted wedding do

and you’ve absolutely refused to go –

picture the longuers clearly: church, people, photographs,

our tune, unnecessarily crap laptop disco –

a couple of speakers, cheap LED glitterballs

watch him hyperfocus on punching that ‘enter’ key.

Oh, darling, save the last dance for me,

no thank you, feet up, football’s on telly –

So, that’s you, Falmouth train,

a bit of bin-digging on the brain,

flicking through yesterday’s paper.

A scorcher – hot enough to boil a halibut’s eyeballs

on the pavement, you’ve sweated over market stalls,

passed on pickled seafood salad,

huffed up Jacob’s Ladder, rooted through charity shops -

nothing doing - until you’re at your final stop –

Ruby’s. ‘All the clothes half price,’ your hawker pledges,

‘Vinyl’s marked down 20%,’ he alleges

and you’re quite adept at flicking dusty racks,

but there’s nothing you feel like humping back

save an old Al Stewart, unusual sleeve, and pretty sure

you’ve ticked that box some years before.

Eventually you chance across four CDs propping

the shelves above, cracked and purporting

to contain semi-playable discs.

You think: ‘What’s this’ – and – ‘Ah, go on, take the risk,

why don’t you?' Remembering that proffered discount,

you approach his bunker all confident bounce.

He glances, sifts, tots it up, checks your face’s pages

and demands full whack – shuffle your feet,

make protest, but he responds, ‘Nah, you’re too cheap’.

Maybe he checked himself, but you don’t really know,

wonder who Ruby is, what she would do

and when you get back, the kitchen floor’s sown

with deconstructed fruit you’ll swab alone.