Four ASBOs and a Wedding (I.P.)

A blushing bride emerges up at 23A...
takes the front porch steps, two at a time...
looking more akin to a fairy, but then
it seems anything goes, these days.

Her veil...courtesy of her mother,
and off-cuts from upstairs’, chintz,
net curtains and her wings, made from
Tesco’s Value Foil catching the sun.

No bouquet, just a wand; a loo-brush
nicked from her granddad’s outside khazi –
topped with a cut-out cardboard star,
daubed with red and green glitter.

The boys pay her no heed – too busy
making mischief with a rusty piece of scaffold –
pilfered from a bomb site down the street.
The oldest kid totes it – rifle-style.

‘The filthy rotten scum!
If they ain’t careful...right,
he’ll blow there brains out...right,
in a calculated random kind
of torture.’ Catcalls resound
off graffitied walls.

Another one’s pinched a bike
and with a cop car – siren blaring,
round the corner, they palm it off
on the new kid in town, who collides,
broadside, with a lamppost.

They laugh – he cries...until the bride
wipes his eyes.

“Who needs a rotten veil anyway?” she says
as he blows his nose on her off-white
lace creation. “Ain’t no one worth
marrying round here, any road...
bastards the lot of ’em!”

“What about me?” he asks, which makes
her giggle, as tiny feet jiggle in fluffy,
pink slippers, Mr. Nasty on the toes –
standing, mouth agog, chewing gum; blows
a kiss in a bubble at her betrothed.