Pat Winslow
Crumpsall Psychiatric Teaching Facilities
It's real enough, the soot, the drizzle,
but who'd put a crossing up a cul-de-sac?
Who'd fit it flush up against a wall,
stripes butting the kerbstones?
And where's the bloke that sells the paper?
Where's the empty Mackesons bottle
and Manny's fag ends and Manny's cough
and the sounds of people going to work?
Who'd put a crossing here, for fucksakes,
with a Belisha beacon that doesn't work?
You say Go on, do it, look left, look right,
the Green Cross way, but I go back further.
It was Tufty then and none of this crap,
playing phone calls and shopping and
any more fares please, ta love, ding-ding
Who'd drive a bus here, answer me that?
Who'd put a crossing? No one's answering.
The phone's a dummy. It's not wired up.
It was A and B. I'm going back. A and B.
Two clattering pennies in the slot.
Big brown bun pennies. Victoria's gob
under our thumbs - that's a laugh –
worn flat and dull, unrecognisable.
Who put the crossing? Who dreamed this up?
I'm not doing it, mate, one foot after another
on the black, on the white, left and right.
I haven't forgotten. No one forgets.
You step off, keep going and don't look back.
I've been doing it forever in my head.
Seventeen years. Watch me, fuck's sake,
watch me crossing. I'm doing it once.
But where's the traffic and what's the point?
but who'd put a crossing up a cul-de-sac?
Who'd fit it flush up against a wall,
stripes butting the kerbstones?
And where's the bloke that sells the paper?
Where's the empty Mackesons bottle
and Manny's fag ends and Manny's cough
and the sounds of people going to work?
Who'd put a crossing here, for fucksakes,
with a Belisha beacon that doesn't work?
You say Go on, do it, look left, look right,
the Green Cross way, but I go back further.
It was Tufty then and none of this crap,
playing phone calls and shopping and
any more fares please, ta love, ding-ding
Who'd drive a bus here, answer me that?
Who'd put a crossing? No one's answering.
The phone's a dummy. It's not wired up.
It was A and B. I'm going back. A and B.
Two clattering pennies in the slot.
Big brown bun pennies. Victoria's gob
under our thumbs - that's a laugh –
worn flat and dull, unrecognisable.
Who put the crossing? Who dreamed this up?
I'm not doing it, mate, one foot after another
on the black, on the white, left and right.
I haven't forgotten. No one forgets.
You step off, keep going and don't look back.
I've been doing it forever in my head.
Seventeen years. Watch me, fuck's sake,
watch me crossing. I'm doing it once.
But where's the traffic and what's the point?
Pat Winslow lives in Oxford. Her most recent collection is The Girl in the Iron Lung (Crocus 2003).
Page(s) 30
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