Basket belong

He wrote letters about all those oranges and prawns
forehead bumping the pavement,
the way they fell like old icicles
or narcissus bulbs grurting out light fittings.

He said the women lead their daughters by the bicep
into shops with hooked up front-coats.
He wrote the brown and orange toyshop like a retro brooch
has not remade its face in a decade,
he says he says

the saucer faced children
clatter when the bells ring
skim their tongues over milk teeth
play their parents perfectly.

Those chestnut breasts are swell
but the girls groom them
those tongueing poppies lapel clucking
on about distribution boxes
cooking creatively with parsnips,
old paper planes sailing into Barber Bay pockets.

Put some wellies on, he said, and rummage
in a bag of rag ribbons,
scrag up that lovely hair, think of how hard
it is to catch up the countless collections
when everything is on such different clocks.

Eventually, he says, peg out the washing
press your lips into the planning wet
sound
dronging heavy long
notes about inscrutable dentists
dishing stickers out to award winning lollipop ladies.

He signs off saying the insects are bitten by the shut up
streets, the hum of being hungry
is itching news and all those corn barns
adulating sports socks
at home in England
are just too very much.