I liked being small. When I’m on my own

I’m small. I put my pyjamas on

and hum to myself. I like doing that.

What I don’t like is being large, you know,

grown-up. Just like that. Whoosh. Hairy.

I think of myself as a boy. Safe slippers.

The world is terror. Small you can go As I

lay down my head to sleep, I pray . . . I remember

my three wishes sucked up a chimney of flame.

I can do it though. There was an older woman

who gave me a bath. She was joking, of course,

but I wasn’t. I said Mummy to her. Off-guard.

Now it’s a question of getting the wording right

for the Lonely Hearts verse. There must be someone

out there who’s kind to boys. Even if they grew.

Eley’s Bullet

Out walking in the fields, Eley found a bullet

with his name on it. Pheasants korred

and whirred at the sound of gunfire.

Eley’s dog began to whine. England

was turning brown at the edges. Autumn. Rime

in the air. A cool bullet in his palm.

Eley went home. He put the tiny missile

in a matchbox and put that next to a pistol

in the drawer of his old desk. His dog

sat at his feet by the coal fire as he drank

a large whisky, then another one, but this

was usual. Eley went up the stairs to his bath.

He was in love with a woman in the town. The water

was just right, slid over his skin as he gave out

a long low satisfied moan into the steam.

His telephone began to ring and Eley cursed,

then dripped along the hall. She was in a call-box.

She’d lied all afternoon and tonight she was free.

The woman was married. Eley laughed aloud

with apprehension and delight, the world

expanded as he thought of her, his dog

trembled under his hand. Eley knelt,

he hugged the dog till it barked. Outside, the wind

knew something was on and nudged at the clouds.

They lay in each other’s arms, as if what they had done

together had broken the pair of them. The woman

was half-asleep and Eley was telling himself

how he would spend a wish, if he could have only one

for the whole of his life. His fingers counted

the beads of her back as he talked in the dark.

At ten, Eley came into the bedroom with drinks.

She was combing her hair at the mirror. His eyes

seemed to hurt at the sight. She told him sorry,

but this was the last time. She tried to smile.

He stared, then said her words himself, the way

he’d spoken Latin as a boy. Dead language.

By midnight the moon was over the house, full

and lethal, and Eley alone. He went to his desk

with a bottle and started to write. Upstairs,