Friday lunchtime, Lindisfarne, 1979
red hot pokers take the name of their god in vain along a bank pushed up by a bulldozer ten years before they
blaze
behind them shrubbery masticates the breeze which soughs from the sea
innuendos of children ravel, play under pines, one of them screams
as an ant injects formic acid into his knee but no one notices
until a slow girl wanders over, normally a show pony who couldn’t give a toss
the teachers are nowhere to be seen
the sun winks in the watery sky
someone puts down their coffee
the bitten child is bathed in several words, the effect being a layer of meaning clamped to his face
there’s darkness coming
when the colour of blood is forgotten and the shape of a face blurs in the wind
it’s the age of antibodies when nothing is sacred
and these kids will grow old with nothing to say
like the last patches of snow in Antarctica they’ll be
untrammelled
by crocuses