Walking Home from Jews Wood
Wired with an ice trim
But bulging with furnace faces
We marched, diagonal footsteps,
Up that steep brown hill.
Past the Childcatcher's house,
Loose slate and skeletal sycamores,
Past the warm windows
Of the vicar's house
And the torn up porn mags
Flecked across the grey-green
Apron of the graveyard lane.
Past the tombstone terraces
Under hissing orange street lamps,
And the onlooking toddler with the old man's
Face on the doorstep, crouching,
Curious. Past the small dog
With big ambitions and the gnomes
Of the major who lives by himself.
Home to the bathtub that squeezes
My feet to itch and my brittle
Fingers to reach out for here.