Dolers

The estate was full of boys spinning
Around in cars and the girls chalking 
Hopscotch on the pavements. We hung 
Our legs off the bridge, barely able to reach a barstool. 

I got kissed in the alleyway and then went home,

Next day I walked across the field after breakfast

Listening to the school bell. Soon the bell would 

Ring again and the sums jotted into the journal

And to the hill-walker with a watchful eye,

Can be seen the better arranged fields

Of the north. Up there it is black and white, 

The dirty linens are not left on the floor.

In school they strangle you with
Mathematics, constrain you in a desk
With schoolbags and tight collared
Sweat. Many numbers that run fast ahead. 

Nine years old, visiting the sea for the first time, I

Was as a light as a hula hoop jumping through dunes 

And waves. Later in the evening I got a clip about

The ear, my Mother's hand warning me to behave.

'Dirty boots must be left at the door'. I didn't 

Know it then, but memory is the hardest thing,

Good that I have remembered well. The street 

Lined with bins on a monday evening, 

The dogs barking and moonlight gleaming

On the slated rooftops, drops of rain 

Clouding the puddles with run off, mince and 

Spuds on a dinner plate. In the streets

that turn away like a bird flown, 
Shaping the leather-hard soles of people's 
Feet, un-offended by the shameless 
Vulgarity of making their ends meet.