before saying something in haste

which at leisure I might come to repent.

But my mouth still feels

like a car with its wheels stolen, propped up

on bricks, and I’m unhappy about the way

they stitched the tip of my tongue

to my cheek.

HOMECOMING

Think, two things on their own and both at once.

The first, that exercise in trust, where those in front

stand with their arms spread wide and free-fall

backwards, blind, and those behind take all the weight.

The second, one canary-yellow cotton jacket

on a cloakroom floor, uncoupled from its hook,

becoming scuffed and blackened underfoot. Back home

the very model of a model of a mother, yours, puts

two and two together, makes a proper fist of it

and points the finger. Temper, temper. Questions

in the house. You seeing red. Blue murder. Bed.

Then midnight when you slip the latch and sneak

no further than the call-box at the corner of the street;

I’m waiting by the phone, although it doesn’t ring

because it’s sixteen years or so before we’ll meet.

Retrace that walk towards the garden gate; in silhouette

a father figure waits there, wants to set things straight.

These ribs are pleats or seams. These arms are sleeves.

These fingertips are buttons, or these hands can fold

into a clasp, or else these fingers make a zip

or buckle, you say which. Step backwards into it

and try the same canary-yellow cotton jacket, there,

like this, for size again. It still fits.

8 P.M. AND RAINING WHEN ROBINSON

arrives by bus in a town whose name

he would not care to mention,

sets his baggage down,

hails a taxi and pays a fiver, his heart

in his mouth, Robinson

saying, “There’s a road goes east, take it

for one mile then drop me. If there’s change, you keep it.”

No names,

then, “Hey, you’re Robinson,

I saw that piece in the Racing Post …” One mention

of himself and Robinson’s heart

takes off with itself like a horse in a hailstorm, down

to the car park under the covered market, down

to that glove compartment where he left it …

empty! Robinson’s heart

sinks like an anchor. Mud now, his name,

and only minutes till they find him and mention

the million dollar question. “Robinson,”

his doctor once told him, “Robinson,

you should take things steady, son. Calm down.”

But his nerves, his hair, not to mention

his face looking more each day like a Photofit.

In heaven’s name

they should finish him off but they haven’t a heart

between them. Sprinting now, each beat of his heart

gazumping the next—take that, Robinson.

Someone drops his name

in a doorway, a body check brings him down,

they hold out his tongue and lean a blade against it:

“Next time you squeak, Robinson, one more mention

and you’re sausage meat. Mention

us again and we’ll twist out your heart

and you’ll eat it,

we’ll have your balls for a bow tie, Robinson,