Taking my first girlfriend
to the pub at seventeen
Crossing the cobbles
of a gunmetal grey 
northern market town
Mitten in glove
warm in our teenage
prototype version of love
A chatterbox pint for me
a tipsy glass of white for her
and we’d find a quiet corner

Invariably, some red-faced
shaven-headed native
furtively eyes my companion
“Where do you come from?”
they’d splutter in th...

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