I Saw A Boy

I saw a boy
Who knew he was a boy
And wanted all the world
To see a man.
He had gelled hair
And wore a face
Like a frown drawn on a strawberry.
He was about twelve.

I didn’t see his father
But his father must have been
The frown.
Like the one drawn on his strawberry son
With added bruises
And rotten patches.

I didn’t see his mother
But she must have been
stretched and pulled
And her skin, in places, must have been
The skin of an old plum.

I didn’t see his grandfather
But he must have been
A tough one,
Must in his time must have worn
A shirt and shoes
And screwed against brickwork
And swapped his shirt
For a beaten tweed jacket
And loafers
And sworn on the bus.

And his grandmother, God bless her
Must have been stretched in her own way
Quieter probably
Tweaked by curlers and rouge,
Must have watched eighties television
Slightly baffled
Must have, in her time, cooed
And wiggled her hips,
Must have screwed on her mother’s sheets.

And that great grandmother, God bless her
Must have had an orgasm or two.
Must have worked, factory maybe,
Must have seen a gun
And known lads who’d shot
Husky European boys
In the head.

And her husband, maybe called Ted,
Or Philip, or Rod, or Bill, or Ben,
Must have scratched himself from time to time
And waggled along the street like a bull
And spat on his hand and streaked it through
His hair.
Must have been a boy in, what,
Eighteen ninety eight? Ninety nine?
Must have grimaced and sworn
Like his thick dad
In that high rasping breaking fake
Falsetto that boys have,
Must have wanted
The world
To see
A man.