Days

10 years old

we’d be out all day

in that long hot summer,

each cradling a bottle of spruce

and a cheese and apple sandwich

wrapped in a waxed bread wrapper,

either to the swing bridge or

the vertiginous drop under devil’s tooth

if we were feeling brave,

otherwise it was climbing trees

the whole gang, urchin gibbons

just larking about,

hiding in Patterson’s wheat

or tickling newts, near cherry hall

only us lads, no girls allowed

unless we played kiss chase

in Hawthorne Rd,

the days were long but all too short

and then we went our separate ways

divided by something called the 11-plus.

Published by grahamrsherwood