‘Presbyterian Support Services’, by Brian Turner

It seems a wan place to be
perhaps because you’re surrounded by discards
and you’re aware that some would say
you could do with sprucing up yourself …
which, by certain standards of the day –
what others are there? – is true.

The down-at-heel often seem
stripped of pride in their appearance
was what your spic father intoned,
asserting they lacked that cluck of self-esteem,
and though money’s sure as hell
not everything, what do you do
when you haven’t got much of it
except rummage about in an op shop
where there’s more hush than hurrah?

You guess there’s no pat answer
and while most of the clothes
have a lot of life left in them
they are dulled by their failure
to disclose the dramas
they were party to. Not only that,
you’re nagged by the thought
that the last time
you bought a pair of jeans here
a female friend wondered if you knew
they were really a woman’s
and you ought to have known that
by the waist measurement
and the size of the arse.