Gary Allen
The Backs
This world is lost to us,
redeveloped in the mind,
and on the ground:
water seeping down black brick
at the back of the timber yard.
It’s what we find without thinking -
the breathless games of flesh
that remain smell,
(nettle, hedge, earth, urine)
religion defiled,
the crossing of a divide.
Innocence is hard to shock -
we held still like the evening
while they did it against the swinging gate
and she wiped the come from her skirt.
What we observed with wonder,
we now judge and fear -
the man with the executioner’s hood
evaporating like the sharp sound of years.
Page(s) 28-29
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