BOY, 1975 by John Doak

Scurrying along a sewage pipe
across a stretch of the old canal.
The water is clear.
You have the sun in your eyes.

All the boys are in skins
and they're following you across the water -
some laughing, others not.
Borstal is just a year away.

Somewhere Grandma's hands
are wringing
laundry. She has a cigarette lit
and the windows are open.

Maybe she will hear the boys
come laughing up the path, maybe not.
She is somewhere, probably,
and you are here,

sunlit, shirtless,
scurrying along a sewage pipe
across a stretch of the old canal
that runs through all my dreams.