Wordly Goods Monologues
page 10

Scarf poems

 

In a kaleidoscopic fairground
Mrs Mop & Esther plied their trades.
Mrs Mop remembers sulphurous vapours
filling the air, the hissing and the sharp smell
of fear, the slippery blackened stick slithering
out of my hands, the taste of gas on my tongue.

Esther remembers the tinkle of bells,
the aroma of black tobacco coating
my nostrils, the ice cold crystal beneath
my hands, the taste of unknown sorrows
yet to come.

After the birth of the seventh FitzGerald,
when the paternity payments outweighed his means,
Just Gerald left Surrey (in a hurry)
for a short holiday in Mexico.
He saw a card in a shop window
for a job as a bandit and decided to stay.

I’d always put a bit by,
so that when I retired
I bought a house in Streatham and
Filled it with vibrant young women.

 

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