The day I found that ship wrecked
pound note, the eye of the Queen
giving me a warning glance or the drifting
smile of a woman I will never meet,
like the furtive teasing of a model
stripped down to the waist that adorned
the tossed away magazines and that got caught
in the branches of the Willow trees
that lined sentry still on display
on the banks of the River Rae,
on the dusty pavement
on the bridge
that separates Moor Green Lane
and Dad’s Lane…
I felt like a King.
Wednesdays were always the worst,
the inevitability of the boys in blue
losing their midweek game, the seventeen
unwinnable match streak adding to the woes
of a boy who detested the salad that was served
up as if a caterpillar had given up on life
and become a school dinner lady, decked out
in white and suspicious of anyone who asked for less
or even just a piece of stale bread, a glass of water
and some cress and I would like to be on my way please…
…all this the precursor
to the despair of the Wednesday night meal
in which liver and onions would scowl at me
and I would push it round the plate,
fork first,
veterinary surgeon second,
and the haunting words
of the head master as he spat embarrassment
into the cheeks of an nine year old
that make me cringe now as I remember retorting
with under ten year old bravado, “Well,
let them eat it then.”
On Wednesdays I would only
pick at the prison staffed
solitary piece of French stick
and an armful of grass shaped
cress.
On the day I felt like a King,
I somehow knew
that it would end that way as I rushed home
to change into my Cub uniform, freshly ironed,
shoes scuffed and unpolished, my job,
handkerchief in pocket,
mostly always forgotten,
point docked, still spent six months as Cub of the Month
despite the continuous absence
of the Cub Scout snot rag,
and beret clean, tidy, resplendent,
leading to a life-long love of hats,
the Trilby not yet Scout endorsed headwear…
…As if by providence my mother was already out,
having made her way up to the scout hall early
and my dear father convinced by my argument
that I really wasn’t hungry and that surely
my mother would need a hand as she in turn helped Akala,
his bewildered smile hiding inquisitiveness
as he reflected that perhaps the beautiful woman
who recently joined and whom had set me on the path
to life-long Atheism,
had perhaps stirred something else
as is the want of all young boys,
to be held in the arms of a rebel
wearing perfume
and long curly blonde hair,
the fixation of the cool
and yet not understanding why,
despite all the magazines that fluttered in the wind
on the Willow trees on the bank of the Rae.
I was fixated of course
but for the prospect of eating
behind my parents back
in the café at the end of Hobson
and Pershore Road and directly opposite the Scout Hall
where I would wrap my lips seductively around
a couple of bits of bacon, some toast and an egg
with a yolk so yellow that it blotted out the clouds
and the rain that began to hit the Birmingham streets.
I may have fallen in childish love
with the woman named Angela who sat me down
inside the Natural History Museum
and who explained evolution
in a kind way that meant I hardly saw
any of the exhibits that day, but for now
the taste of her perfume was forgotten,
the look in nine year old boys eyes
to a woman who smiled with bright red lipstick,
dismissed and the slow satisfaction
of something other than grass being eaten
as the heavy rain slashed down
and bounced and tumbled off the telephone box
over the road with greater agility than Olga Korbut
on a night out in Moscow,
as with empty plate I finished my thoughts
and the moment of regal riches
was gone.
Ian D. Hall 2015