Sidelongings - Belfast 1969 Poem by Anthony Weir

In dark courts and entries
between cold urinals
long since demolished
where men looked over and down
at each other (hopeful, peninsular)
little girls loitered.
Always in pairs
(for they were not lonely)
uncourted
unentered
they whispered to grim, sidelong men:
'How much will you give us to rub you off, Mister? '
Little girls with dirty
little-girl faces worked
stony-faced men with quick
and matter-of-fact
little-girl hands
to new-old
I TOLD YOU SO of soft flesh

when some men don't pay

near old, lost urinals
where other men
sidelong and wistfully
fingered each other
(bleak seas round peninsulas)
shifting from toilet to toilet
or paired off in the night
past old little girls
for brief, hopeless pleasures.