Murphy Street

A lonely whore, leaning against the tired brick of an alleyway on a cigarette break, looks down just in time to see a rusty needled syringe held in the mouth of a scrawny alley cat cut through her nyloned shin.

Who knows what she thinks, reversing her nicotine lover into the air with a curse at the blood dripping on her work shift.

With a turn she flicks the rest of her cigarette at the black nightmare scampering back down the alleyway with a bullet in its haunting mouth and heads back to what she knows.

Years later, crumpled up in the sheets of a state sponsored antiseptic association, she’ll hear the whispers of the nurses just as clear as their menacingly silent footsteps down the polythane hallways.

Just another dirty whore. This disease is what she gets.

It swirls around what’s left of her, melting into the plastic tube that is taped against its will to her arm. And she sighs, knowing they would never believe

That a moment away from the street and a hungry feline were all it took instead.