A uniform, a badge.
A florescent jacket.

(Worn with pride?)

Law isn’t applied
to its keepers.

My skin wears need. Like
static from an old t.v. screen-
willing you to touch.
But don’t touch me, OK?
Don’t look me in the eye,
and don’t ask.
Don’t ask 'cause I’d say yes,
when I should say no.
I’d say yes and I’d mean it.
But the whole world ‘d fall apart
after.

Marilyn Monroe (who
lived next door, and swore more
than anyone I know)
reckoned blondes had all the fun.
It didn’t seem so to me,
when her old man was home.
She was as glamorous as
our Mum was dowdy.
Her lot lived on freezer-food
and fizzy, while our Mum
slogged over a ****** gas-stove,
and washed-up without gloves on.
Marilyn Monroe told
our Mum that she should fight.
Our Mum gave, to Marilyn Monroe,
secret recipes for dog-food stew
and koi carp pie.

Green-apple pings off of a shelf,
just misses his ear,
watermelon scores a direct hit
to the back of his throat.
… askin’ for it... the ****...
short ******…
Woken mid rant, we don’t hear the rest,
not yet.
Straight-faced to the telly,
feeling confusion
pierce the backs of our heads-
dontlaughdontlaughand
dontlookatme.
Silently we pray
to the gods of Friday night
and sour candy, that
he’ll nod off and start snoring
before one of us pops
into a neon-snot-mess of giggles.
It’s taken too long
and we’ve eaten half our ammunition, but
he’s at it again. We grin.
Retrieve pink and green missiles
from 'round the chair legs,
listening
to what he’d do to her.

America, please
let your paper-heart bleed
for the poor.

No men.
But when the
conversation starts, they dominate.
Worm their way into every sentence, every silence.
Every caught breath, exhaled pause.
Names, nice-to-meet-yous, passed round with sandwiches and tea.
Hole-riddled autobiographies, wadded out with circumstance and need.
Explaining themselves, defending their actions. In turn. And I?
Have never felt so young.
To my left, and working clockwise: Affair-with-the-boss, Heart-condition, High-risk-of-genetic-defects,
In-the-middle-of-a-divorce-not-sure-why-she-slept-with-him, Grown-up-children-can’t-bear-to-go-through-that-again,
and back to me. (Boyfriend-has-two-kids-wants-no-more)
He noticed that I’m pregnant.
Was pregnant.
Was.
We chew our way through sandwiches. Different coloured fillings, no flavour- choked down with lukewarm tea.
We know it’s a test.
We have to talk, smile, eat, drink, laugh (not manically)
if we're to go home.
I can’t do it.
I want to cry. But I’ve been told off for that already (curled up on a trolley, examining bloodied fingers)
I drift, I think.
Jump out of my skin when she speaks to me.
You must eat she says.
You must eat.
I search for myself in their eyes,
re-make myself from fragments and reflections I find there (Four parts child, one part *****)
It’s OK, I tell her. It’s OK.
On my way home I’ll get a Happy Meal.
I’m collecting the toys.

What’ll happen when you die? Will I lose you again? That would mean finding you. Undoing years, unpicking frayed edges fixed with the wrong coloured yarn. I see you at funerals. At Mum’s you were angry. So was I - but I concealed it. Played numb. At Dad’s you were shaking. I thought your nerves were finally shot. Or that the little boy, naked standing in snow, washing his clothes after a petit-mal fit, was still shivering and waiting for Mum. Then I noticed you weren’t drinking. Said you’d been stitched (again) by police- who’ve always had it in for you. Like they pass this hatred down through rank and generation, onto every town you’ve ever lived in? So that explained the orange-juice-and-lemonade made tidal in your hand. I want to rewind you. You were trouble, of course - but you were nice-trouble and I loved you. I looked up to you. I didn’t see the Big-Brave-Wall you were building. Or the things that made us not-normal. When I was born you were thirteen and already broken. When I was old enough to understand Mum had gained an upper hand, and you always sided with Dad. Even though you showed signs of knowing he was the ******* that ****** us up? I didn’t get it as bad. She learned. Mistakes made on you weren’t made on me. For a start she never left me with him. I was less ******. Or maybe not. Maybe just differently-****** and quicker to heal. My first crush? The copper who called for you, countless times - while I curled m'self round m' cornflakes, burning - too scared to move or turn, rotisserie style, in front of the blue-gas flame. And somewhere in me, not so deep, that teenage ju, that one less-mended who danced-all-weekend-and-slept-where-she-landed, still boasts: Had him y’know. Another notch on a well-and-truly nibbled ‘post. I cried at Dad’s funeral, but I wasn’t crying for him. Why would I?