I Like People
By John West
I like people with scars, hit by life
4 or 5 kids, floppy livers, bruised hearts
hair burnt yellow by dye. I like people
with safety-pinned glasses, people
who wheel vinyl shopping bags, yarn
at corners. I like people who wear three day's growth,
cotton dresses, sloppy cardigans, torn jumpers, who do not own
answering machines, mobile phones or house alarms.
I like people who have never been to a gym, who don't jog
who don't own a Walkman, people who ride bikes
because they have to, people who $2 shop
who buy things they need in Saint Vincent's. I like people
who cook in, serve in, own, eat in
run-down cafes with laminex tables,
where they serve raisin toast, poached eggs,
cholesterol-coated bacon, where they let the lady
who breathes through the hole in her throat, just sit.
I like people who relax at weekends with slabfuls of beer,
I like people with big tits, high blood pressure who drink,
people who hold up varicose veins which will never be treated, people
with unfixed bunions, arthritis, their bones grinding,
worn rough from walking, knocked-about people,
people you see every day in the better suburbs.