Business Girls (Live)

From the geyser ventilators autumn winds are blowing down

On a thousand business women having baths in Camden Town.

Wastepipes chuckle into runnels, steam’s escaping here and there,

Morning trains through Camden cutting shake the crescent and the square.

Early nip of changeful autumn, dahlias glimpsed through garden doors;

At the back precarious bathrooms jutting out from upper floors.

And behind their frail partitions, business women lie and soak,

Seeing through the draughty skylight flying clouds and railway smoke.

Rest you there, poor unbeloved ones, lap your loneliness in heat:

All too soon the tiny breakfast, trolleybus and windy street.