Room vacant
beyond Marble Arch westward
in an endless Georgian terrace
this house contains
seventeen people living
bedsitters with windows
fearful to leave at eight
anxious to regain at six
the one protection
of their little rooms
Yale-locked
against the world
a wasteful arrangement for
they make seventeen cups of coffee
fry seventeen lots of bacon
every day
and leave the smell on the stairs
they pass on the stairs
at eight and at six
looking down through or away
nod grunt or neither
names often quite wrongly gleaned
from letters lying in the hall
the landlord powerful with passkey
intrudes on their little worlds
when he empties the meters
yesterday he found the old lady
in Number Three
whom some of the tenants
had never seen
and only two in the house
knew her name
had been dead
for a fortnight
Page(s) 56-57
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