It's Still Life

Bond Street, Winter

He sits beneath glass.

Not inside the warmth of it,
but reflected in it,
a ghost beside mannequins
dressed for a season
that does not forgive him.

A tan hood pulled tight
against a London wind
that does not care
who once had keys
and who now has none.

His beard holds frost
like unkept promises.

People pass
with polished shoes,
their eyes sliding over him
as if he were signage.
SALE.
CLEARANCE.
FINAL REDUCTION.

He was once reduction-proof.
Once a man with a door.
Once a man with an address
that existed on paper,
and therefore
existed in the world.

Now he belongs nowhere.

Without an address
he cannot be counted.
Without being counted
he cannot be helped.
Without help
he cannot stand.

The system is a locked room
that requires a key
he lost
when the job went first,
then the flat,
then the paperwork
that proved he was real.

He tells you this quietly.

Not bitter. Just tired.

Tired in the marrow.
Tired in the eyes that still hold
a stubborn light
like a streetlamp flickering
long after the shopfronts go dark.

He eats the meal you bring
as if it were not charity
but conversation.
As if hunger
is something best handled
without spectacle.

The wind moves through Bond Street
like a banker
collecting interest.

It collects his heat.
It collects his sleep.
It collects the small warmth
of human dignity
when strangers step around him
as though proximity were contagious.

He is not an advertising board.
He is a man
mid-collapse
in a city
that worships glass.

And I stopped.

In a world fluent in avoidance
I spoke his name
as if it mattered.

Perhaps that is the cruelest mercy.
To be seen once,
clearly,
and then return
to invisibility.

Tonight he will curl
into a shape
that resembles survival.

And somewhere in the dark
the city will glitter
like nothing is broken.

But it is.

It is broken
where a man must prove
he exists
before he can be saved.

And perhaps what haunts me
is not his hunger —
but the knowledge
that he is one misstep
from being any of us.

---

Image: iPhone 16 Pro Max; all writing is my own original work.©Misky 2006-2026.