A Brace of Snipe

The point
I’m coming back to
is the time Oz told me —
we were sat in the kitchen, having a bit craic
while Mam sat with Tina,
watching her smoke —

told me while he, too, lit up,
for he liked a smoke himself, though his manner
in so doing was distinct: he drank deep
while Tina’d sip
pent little sighs,
eyes on everything but you —

told me & Gav,
because Gav would be there too,
‘the bairn’, it being our custom to split
the cramped back-to-back
by gender, the kitchen like the tap-
room of an old-style pub, each half

a mystery to the other, though admittedly not one
of especial importance —
told me & Gav about the time at Linden —
Linden Hall, that is, a country mansion,
back in the day a private residence
though subject of late to swift changes of ownership

as chain after chain swoops in & gives up
on its modest links & restaurant
flogging unseasonable salmon —
flavourless, hence the smoke —
at Linden when, in loopy old age, Eve Adamson,
her God-given name, decides to summon —

‘Oz’, I nearly said, but no,
she wouldn’t’ve used the diminutive
for it wouldn’t’ve been right
to abbreviate
such a fine old Northumbrian name;
and besides, ‘Oswald’ was his middle name,

so if she were to drop
the formalities — & she wasn’t — then her Ladyship
would have called him ‘William’
for he’d been born
back when my people, should I have one, tended
to take the name of a king or a saint —

summon him with a tinkling of her bedside bell
and ‘Young?’ she shrills
and there he stands,
her servant-to-be-commanded,
and this time what she’s after’s that brace of snipe
lately shot on her estate,

so Oz has to take off, find them in the woodshed
where they’ve been hung two days,
pluck them — ‘like shuffling
a greasy deck of cards’ — and he’d have been
whistling all this while,
for he’d ever have a tune in his head

till Tina put a stop to it — ‘Ozzie: whisht!’ —
on the grounds that it interfered
with one or other hearing aid,
which, fair’s fair, were cranked so high
they’d give a yelp of feedback if you got too close,
like when you turned the other cheek

for her to plant a goodbye kiss —
Oz: ‘There’s Jimi Hendrix tuning up’ —
and cook them in the traditional style,
which, I’ll tell you so you know, calls for you
to skewer the poor things on their own beaks —
then it’s in the cooker, then it’s on the plate,

then it’s quick as that she’s ate
them, brains & all, while William Oswald Young
holds his hat & holds his tongue
looking at nowt but a brace of beaks
laid crosswise in her lap,
one of which she now takes up & uses for a toothpick.

Powder Blue

Unable to escape, I learned to see.
The price of clarity.
I remember Dad teaching me how to tell
a two-stroke engine by its sound & smell
and me wishing I cared.
I remember a powder-blue hymnal
waiting on each chair in the assembly hall.
I remember mouthing the words God & Lord
to see what would happen. I remember
seeing what happened.
I remember Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
and I remember Findus Crispy Pancakes.
I remember when my grudge
was flavour of the month,
sipping elderberry pop
like it was crème-de-menthe
from a plastic champagne flute,
my prize-winning smile
for the sniggering judge
(Listen to your accent!)
and all the names she could drop.
I remember applause
is the beginning of abuse, abuse
the beginning of applause.
I remember my accuser’s gassy lies,
that wretched voice:
tutored, plausible, smart-casual — like his verse.
I remember the diary I should not have read,
last summer’s dress
bagged up for charity.
I remember Gus, dead
at sixteen — a dodgy batch
of methylenedioxymethamphetamine
or, as he’d’ve had it, a bad dab
of rhubarb & custard —
and no nationwide campaign
to raise awareness. And
for yet a very little while
I will remember Mam sniffing her knees in the bath
and me asking why & her saying
because they smell of salt and it’s nice.
At that time the priest Eli was ruling in Judea
and the Ark of the Covenant
was captured by the Philistines.

Artwork © Joseph Jahn