Change

When the cold hits you,
That’s when you know.
That first night in a Pizza Hut doorway,
Bathed in the tangerine light of the sickly stars.
The concrete’s like permafrost once the sun sets.
It chokes your breath, numbs your brain,
Slams you like a speeding train.
Icicles bristle from your bones like knives,
You’re living out the ninth of your nine lives.
That’s when it’s real. That’s when you know,
And always the same tired one-way exchange;
“Change please? Have you got any change?”

When the silence engulfs you,
That’s when you know.
The streets so quiet that hurried footsteps roar,
So empty that you can hear the rattle in your chest,
And the malign hum of the McDonalds’ M.
The name you used to know,
What they called you long ago,
Is murmured like a barroom threat
By the smoke of discarded cigarettes
And the rustle of chip-shop paper.
When the touch of warmth becomes foreign and strange,
“Change please? Have you got any change?”

When the police find you,
That’s when you know.
The boot that nudges your ribs,
Like an animal nosing for scraps.
And the way their nostrils flare at the smell.
Fluorescent ghosts with flashlights and sneers,
A “Move along!” and derisive jeers.
The twitching lips, perhaps a truncheon’s prod,
“He smells so bad! He stinks! My God!”
And a flashlight screams into your eyes.
You stumble away, mumbling, deranged,
“Change please? Have you got any change?”

When you can no longer speak,
That’s when you know.
The air cold in your lungs, shards of ice in your throat.
When your cough wheezes like a far-off man shouting,
And the words stick like shattered glass in your mouth.
When the beat of your heart begins to slow,
You realise there’s nowhere left to go.
As the sun rises, the streetlights fade.
On a cardboard sign in marker pen,
Written by a hand that will never write again:

“Keep your money. I want Change.”