#amwriting #poem #poetry Fen - 4

Fen - 4

I would see her by the school gates of course.
But, who really pays attention to someone else's mother
when fighting for attention from your own. They said,
with her black eyes and hair, she could have been
a gypsy, or a Spaniard, but they said Italian, but no one
really was outside the television set. In the hip height
world of boys, and blood, she was just Luke's mum. Who held
the fasces rod, of nod or nay to pleading for an hours play
after school. When the sticky goose-grass darts
were sticking through the chain-link fence, Luke and I
became friends. Without strong feeling we declared
ourselves the best of pals, by the book-slat of paperbacks,
held in place by wire. And thus I was invited to the party.
To add to her foreign air, there were grapes in the jelly
and hard-candy cartoon characters wobbled on the top.
I killed one with a single bite, that split the head from body
and everybody laughed as we sat upon the rug, in that garden
fringed by willow, peppered out with meadow flowers.
And then came the holidays. Luke and I would meet
on the path, beyond the lane, to build dens from dead wood,
and whittle with penknives, or use them to play chicken
until a knife had cut our foot. Half way between our homes.
Just beyond the calling range. In the hollow tree we found
dead starling chicks, eaten by an owl Luke said, we each
took a skull and argued who should have the dripping eye
before we threw them in the running stream to see
which floated fastest. Then we sneaked across the horse field
to the stand of bamboo for spears, and back along the trench
of dike when Mrs Prior shouted, I didn't stop to look, just ran.
Only on days when it rained. Only on days when Luke went away.
Only after his father shot his mother, did I have to find new friends.