Other Loves

Mudkicker

They made her over the years,

Somewhere between the Bridge Inn

And the Curly Wurly Bridge, 

In the strew of empty bottles of 

Buckfast and White Lightning and

The scab ends of rollies scuffed

From cracked, rotting tarmac.

They casually tossed their taunts and

Jibes, the lazy, perfunctory barbs

Of lug-headed youths with ambitions 

Dulled by the vacuous promises of

Distant Whitehall bureaucrats and the

Confidence of eager planners who

Believed that they could fix a

Sectarian divide with concrete.

She laced her boots against their

Ignorance, and took her notebook

And her sandwiches, and filled

Her bag with Blyton and Forest,

Hinton and Salinger, wishing

For a shiny, leather satchel, and

Headed to the meadows, where

Shouting was for football, not dinner or 

Short skirts or being late or the boys

Looking wrongly over the gate. 

There, on empty fields, between the

Nettles and the cow parsley, where

Starlings and sparrows chattered,

And where the outsiders could forge

Their code, she caught dreams in the

Rye grass and learned from George

And Darrell, Tim and Nicola and

Lawrie, Michael Curtis and Holden,

Those righteous rebels who knew

Fierce right from wrong – even if

They found wrong fun – and she

Was sure even then that she would

Write her way away from the

Unfinished city with empty streets

And lakes that had no place being:

‘Remember to stay gold, Ponyboy...

Stay gold..., Kaykay?’

And she dreamed wild dreams of

Middle Earth and Mordor and the

Worlds across the sea; far from

Skid Row, just barely out of school,

Far from the crumbled battlements of

Craigavon’s aspirational estates,

Far from Lurgan and Portadown,

Far from Derry and Belfast; and

She loved Queen’s and hated it,

And later loved City, but hated it,

Leaving to find herself in Tokyo,