At ten to nine when I knocked on
for Clive his Gran said he’d just gone
but if I went by their back gate
I’d catch him; I was seconds late.
I found instead a leering man who
stood, exposed. I turned, and ran.

And so this calf-licked, wide eyed kid
was made to see what alleys hid.
They ceased to be the cobbled ways
that led us all toward Bill Ray’s
to blow our spends on pop and sweets.
They've gone, those shops that kept their streets

but this remains a vital scene,
a memory that I’ve picked clean;
a shambles in a dirty mac;
a satchel bouncing at my back;
a teacher I could not compel
to listen as she rang the bell.