When Jessie Had a Thing About Handbags

Jessie
used to use between
eight
and ten bags almost
every day
for two whole years ..
Which
averaged out around
seven hundred
English sobs per week
back then ..
And that, was just
to keep
the bone-ache at bay ..
Jessie very
rarely gouched out ..
In fact, I don’t
think I saw her once,
in those
last eighteen months,
or thereabout ..
Jessie used to make
a killing
lifting handbags
from off
the floor and between
the feet
of so many women
pissing,
or doing what they
had to do
in the cubicle, next to
where
she would sit waiting
to grab one
more handbag, then
scarper
and loose herself
in the bustling streets
outside
Charring Cross railway
station
and ladies lavatories ..
Now and then,
Jessie got clean when
required
to spend time in one
of her majesty’s
finest of prison cells ..
Oh’ and just
for the record, she was
classically
trained and one hell
of a looker ..
But she never fucked
to make cash ..
She said she loved me
way too much
to do anything like that ..
And anyway,
she had a decent job
grabbing
ladies handbags to fall
back on ..
Then one Friday night
in nineteen
eighty something ..
Jessie and
me had an argument ..
Right after
her giro was cashed
and a cheque bounced ..
And although
I forget, what it was all
about now,
I do remember Jessie
being found tho ..
With a pin in her arm
on a swing,
in some bloody kids
playground ..
Close by the canal
we would
occasionally walk along ..
Jessie never
did say goodbye to me
and I’m not
even sure, if I told her
I loved her
before she went over
and I got clean
without too much of a
rattle ..
But I hope I did
and still think of her often ..