At the soft right-hander off the main Newcastle Road –
where the through Ulsterbuses never waver
and I still loiter, aged eleven,
sticking out my hand as the grannies’ open gobs
sail through on an even keel to Belfast,
their hair rinsed chestnut, dark fair, by the ultraviolet glass,
their small hands flustering the bell-pole –
the Beeb’s Sunday morning show
breaks up in the shadow of the mountains
and the wound bales glistening in sun, just raised,
are the surface of an ice-floe
with their Naff Off These Belong To Me,
Spock’s Stuff, Hold Your Chilly Palmers,
Don’t Try Sneaking Them Maginty...
and I hoke in the tumble of the glove box
for the sheaf of unmarked tapes
that will guide me down the dipping runway
into Annsborough, and pot luck sets it at Morcheeba’s
Big Calm and ‘I left my soul here,’
which is almost bang to rights, word-perfect
only my soul was never wedded to the sea
or anywhere that decent buses travelled.
Copyright: Miriam Gamble
First published in Incertus, 2007, Netherlea Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment