There was no apple tree in our garden 
Just the occasional gear box,
Rusting chassis, exhaust pipe, the usual urban detritus.                                                    These objects still exist inside my head.

There was a brick wall with crumbling mortar
Where birds nested, spiders rested  and wild flowers grew.                                                                                 
I had to touch every third brick
Otherwise zombie-ghosts of coy mothers would put me in the zoo.               
The top field contained horses and rhubarb,
Now there are just houses and cars
I can hardly believe that, very occasionally a travelling circus would set up there.

I prayed my dad would fall off his bike and never come home.                                   
Scrubbed fingers, sore in cold water with brillo pads,
Wet westerly winds in winter,
Stripped out the sweaty sky     

Boredom lay heavy on the younger-I,   especially on Sunday                                     
A fully-grown man shouted and swore inside our house,
Us kids didn't know what to do:                   
 "Why the hell don't you grow up?" 
I was the eldest.Where to grow up? How to grow up? Why? 

Merciful poverty there were sluggish nights, blurry mornings, shift work, silence.       
Sun-bloomed summer holidays spent playing with sticks on kerbs                           
It fatigues me now to remember words fade,
Only the smells of wet washing remain, dragged through a mangle of a Monday   
Dogs and children always hungry in the moonlight.

Outside the invisible sky without stars,
Concrete houses that fade into the iron fog of winter   
Where was the enthusiasm of fairy tales?
Transistors  under the pillow.
I heard it on the grapevine.                        

An eternal cigarette smoked in the graveyard, round the corner,
Escaping the loneliness brought on by distant relatives with money.                                                             
We didn't have a pear. tree in our garden either,
Nothing to be seen nor heard.             
Desire started in our elbows, spread to cold knees
Ended in our eyes.  We never cried. Just grew up.