Just Some Place To Be (Poetry)

Oh, it was squalid
no other word could
really convey that
grim first impression
loaded with horror

Below street level
too literally
several steps down
in a seedy world
of lone parenthood

It held a thousand
ghosts of tiny cries
and long sleepless nights
lonely for a life
far removed from this

The long-pile carpet
matted stiff with a
stain from who-knows-what
cheap curtains failed to
reach the grubby sills

I thanked the woman
but I said ‘No thanks —
it wasn’t quite what
I was looking for’
No place for a child