It's a long time since I could take my shoes to the cobbler
to be re-heeled ('They'll be ready Friday')
nor my jug to the milkman with his horse and cart
for milk and buttermilk sold by the quart;
nor give vegetable peelings to The Pig-Man
nor the scissors to The Scissor-Man for sharpening.
It's 60 years since The Old Shawlie
beggar-woman came to our door
and I was reprimanded
for inviting her in (she pissed on the floor).
Not even in this old French village
do kids play on the empty street...
I remember
skipping-ropes and hopscotch, whipping and guiding
a tyreless bicycle wheel along roadways with a stick;
being terrified while hurtling
down a hill in the go-cart that my cousin made
using roller-skate wheels with ball-bearings in them
(now I am incapable of more than hirpling).
I didn't rob birds' nests nor torture cats
nor join in bullying (I was the mildly bullied one),
though for a while I had a beetle-trap.
Nothing was organised. In our free time
we had free movement,
almost unhindered comings and goings.
I liked to play in building-sites
and, alone, in ruins.
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