Threads

I drink my third cup of tea here in my studio, contemplating my middle class greed. I have a delicious lemon tart from Costa. I watch a woman through my window, downstairs in Birdcage Walk, sat on the wall outside farmfoods. I have ten bra drawings on the wall in front of me. She isn’t wearing one under her stained grey Cambridge University t shirt. I can tell. Either that or it is so old it is no longer doing its job. She has grey hair four inches from the roots, the remaining four inches is orange. She is wearing slippers. I watch as she methodically peels a creme egg. She then, with a cheery grin of gold, black and gaps, pops the whole thing in. Now she has both hands free, she rolls a cigarette, lights up and smokes it through the goo in her mouth. I turn away wondering which she will finish first… Or if she relishes the joy of making them both last as long as each other…I pop the last mouthful of lemon tart into my gob, and drain the last gulp of Lady Grey tea from my V&A mug. My hands, now free, type with sticky fingers.