Short

I lie under my plump duvet
and can’t believe it:
at six in the morning
he is letting off fireworks.
Cracks and bangs skid around wet streets,
echo off tiles turning silver.
 
In a car park, or nettled square
of fenced-off waste ground
a frowning someone
is firing damp bangers and cheap rockets
to commemorate the tired beginning
of a brick-coloured life that will whiz by,
too sweaty in the end, but first
wet, and cold.
It makes me flash up
Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz,
his nearly funny one word answer, when asked
What was your childhood like?

Graham Clifford

in collection, Welcome Back to the Country, 2010, Seren,
ISBN 978-1-8541155-9-1