The lit sky like a girl
Clad in mother’s makeup
Biding time till her leaving
The perfume too, pervading
Over the bricked up garden
The wet cloying smell
Of sweat and honeysuckle
Redder now -
The buzzing of cheap radios
Play as men rub themselves
Against their ochre cars
Waxing attention, waning
In the barking yards
On the paint flaking porches
Mothers suck the tears
From their young
Bandage the blood
Send them back out
Onto the Game of the Road
Two of them, green-faced
From the light on the leaves
Climb into an oak’s bower.
From a thick branch’s peak
The black rook looks down
