It Is Icy Cold Poem by Gert Strydom

It is icy cold and a man
with a short sleeved shirt passes
and it doesn’t look
as if the young girl
with a blouse
are getting cold.

There’s taxi’s
and picking people up
and a few vagrants
sleep in front
of the doors of buildings
to hide against the wind.

People stand with their hands
in their pockets
to fight the cold
and some are lighting
their first cigarettes.

The talking of the schoolgirls
has disappeared
and they are looking at papers
and I wonder if
they are writing a test,
or is it the head girl
that stands near to them
that causes them this morning
to behave.