Puckered Lips

Foghorn-trombone, and snickety snack go her lips,

Lipsticked teeth, chiaroscuro of nicotine.

Puckered lips ('like a duck's arse', says my dad),

Ringed fingers like knots on an oak

A creature of spite, but she's good to her friends

- Till their backs are turned.

Imagined her naked when teenage erections

Stopped me from standing in church

Dead, found on the pavement at dawn

Trying to climb a neighbour's wall for a better look:

She slipped, fell, cracked the skull.

The ships sing a salute on the Clyde