Black Bag

Once it was filled with the finest Norwegian chocolate

sometimes white, sometimes nutty.

It came home every second Friday night,

stuffed with cassette tapes,

 Betamax videos,

it brought me white t-shirts

I’d proudly wear

with my legs bare,

some fingerless

gloves with stripes

and pink rollers in my hair.

The t-shirt would say ‘Brae A’ or

‘Commorant’ but never

‘Piper Alpha’.

The black bag changed,

it became covered in mud,

from skids down the short-cut,

it had dirty washing; secret letters.  

It sometimes didn’t come home at all,

or it would lie at the back door,

 in a dirty crumpled heap

smelling of booze and cigarettes;

staleness.

It left one day,

up and over the shoulder

it never said goodbye,

it never came back.

The black bag.