Left Out. Poem by Michael Walker

('Imagine all the people/ sharing all the world'. 'Imagine'. John Lennon, c.1975) .

In this city there are smiling shopkeepers
who may speak more than a sentence,
making you feel more like an acquaintance;
less like another faceless customer.

The department store has menswear sales
on the ground floor, home appliances
and feather bedding on the first floor,
and elevated parking at the doorstep.

Housing is not such a bright prospect
for the tenants paying market rents;
some live city life like transients.
They have few material attachments.

These tenants are left out, hemmed in
by the so-called boom in house prices.

-April,2015.