Friday evening he walks home from the office
After his week spent putting stranger’s lives right
Or wrong depending upon your point of view
To his waiting family expectantly anticipating
They’ll gather around for their weekend sweets
What will emerge from his briefcase this week
A bag of lemon bonbons, or strawberry sherberts
Small moments matter like those weekend treats
Friday lunchtime would be spent at the market
Filling the time and buying something useless
From shouting men on bargain bric-a-brac stalls
Eight-track cassettes when we didn’t have a car
Those hand-me-down clothes you brought home
In plastic bags eagerly torn open for the prize
Outfits the adopted African kids had grown out of
Two-tone jeans with flares like Concorde wings
One pair pink and beige another blue and green
With shiny metal studs the like of which I’d never seen
Crazy coloured tanktops, shirts with penny rounds
And the shiniest of lace-ups with heels a mile high
One week a stack of old Beano comics turned up
The children’s home kids had finished with them
They were throwing them out but I stacked the lot
High by my bedside and I read them for weeks
And every week we’d gather for our weekend sweets
Wondering what would emerge from the bag this week
Chocolate footballs, or penguin biscuit mis-shapes
When you’ve not got much you love those weekend treats
Martin A W Holmes, June 2017
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