Rob Hindle
Joseph Denton, 14. John Denton, 11
Working the night shift at Loxley Old Forge
Last spring we went nesting in Agden Wood.
I stood in the leaf-mush – my back not fit
after three winters’ work – and watched you
climb. The rooks sprayed like shot and I heard
you laughing. When you dropped back beside me,
mouthed a piebald egg into my palm, your hair
was hung with lime white shit. Lucky.
In the autumn you came to the forge with me.
The lads broke you in with their filthy tales
but the way they spat blood was the bigger shock.
You liked the night shift – the dawn’s walk home,
the flaring shadows (though the tilt hammer’s thump
couldn’t stifle the hack of the grinder’s cough).
You climbed the high birches and still
had the breath to suck out the yolk.
Now the work of the winter was making you curse.
When the dam wall burst and the night caved in,
you shot up the shuttle pole while I stood there
gaping. I thought of the rook’s egg clutched in
your grin. Then nothing.
I stood in the leaf-mush – my back not fit
after three winters’ work – and watched you
climb. The rooks sprayed like shot and I heard
you laughing. When you dropped back beside me,
mouthed a piebald egg into my palm, your hair
was hung with lime white shit. Lucky.
In the autumn you came to the forge with me.
The lads broke you in with their filthy tales
but the way they spat blood was the bigger shock.
You liked the night shift – the dawn’s walk home,
the flaring shadows (though the tilt hammer’s thump
couldn’t stifle the hack of the grinder’s cough).
You climbed the high birches and still
had the breath to suck out the yolk.
Now the work of the winter was making you curse.
When the dam wall burst and the night caved in,
you shot up the shuttle pole while I stood there
gaping. I thought of the rook’s egg clutched in
your grin. Then nothing.
Page(s) 33
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