Carhorns on Christmas Eve: a feather slaps the road
as traffic snuffles through the windchilled rain towards
Whitechapel. Fox'll 'ave 'im, see me right. The croak
of nicotine and MaxStrength lager rasps a throat,
coating my face in spittle. I kneel back from jaws -
a smile of yellow teeth in whiskers, cotton coat
caught up on shoulders thinned to bone. I touch the sores
that screen his face and ask: can angels really fall?

Faces can lie, my mother told me once
and this one's stubble over bliss. It hides
nothing from me: my vendor's eye has scraped
it up for sale in bottles, tinctured grace
priced for a festive gift. A useful find
of angel camouflaged as car-trashed tramp.