Art Students
They still look the same,
despite the generations passing.
Skinny girls in long slinky dresses,
worn with chunky painted boots,
or short shorts, cropped tops,
decorated with fabric paint,
or silky embroidery,
and those fragile ‘kitten’ slippers.
No bare feet though.
Modern pavements have killed that.
Long flowing red locks,
a battered Van Gogh hat,
She’s old enough to be a lecturer.
Has the body language of instruction,
talking to a rapt younger girl.
Emaciated arms like an opium smoker,
but the searching alert eyes of an artist.
She pauses her conversation briefly,
long enough to scan passing ‘Cammo man’,
and perhaps file something for later.
Just as I did with her.
Two silent snapshots.
Then, around the corner,
a different face of the same coin.
A strapping great wench,
taller than me,
striding with serious intent.
Deliberately holed black fishnet tights,
acres of flesh below a short skirt.
All in ragged matte black.
Her hair a skull-contouring buzz-cut,
with a narrow ‘Stealth Mohican’
barely an eighth long.
A ‘Steam Punk’ Aura 
She looks as if her chosen tools
would be an angle grinder,
a pile of rusted scrap,
and a welding torch.
Then, fifty yards further on,
the everyday world,
of take-aways, banks,
corner shops, and normality
closes in again.
Gyppo