AFTER BAD COWBOYS

A BOY IN LONDON IN 1950S AFTER BAD COWBOYS

You used to cross
Rockingham Street
to the bakers
on the corner

of Meadow Row
and buy 6 crusty rolls
and a white loaf of bread
and carry them back home

to the fifth floor
of the flats
where your mother said
keep the change for going

and you pocketed the change
to save for the 6 shooter gun
you’d seen in the toy shop
along the New Kent Road

and your mother
would butter a roll
and put in a slice of cheese
and you would go sit

in the window
over looking
the railway
shunting yard

and eat
taking in the rail trucks
loaded with coal
being shunted into

the yard and the trucks
unload and the coal
would fall down through
to the coal wharf below

and then you saw
the coal carts loaded
with sacked up coal
and the horses in harness

waiting to go
and you imagined
one of those horses
in saddle and you

taking off across
the Wild West
with your new 6 shooter
in your hand

tracking the bad cowboys
and dropping into
the public house
for a glass of redeye

or lemonade
don’t be too long
your mother said
nearly time for school

and as you ate
the last few crumbs
and sipped
the last drops of milk

from the glass
and wiped your mouth
with the back of your hand
a steam train

crossed the bridge
and you thought
of the bad cowboys
on Bank’s House Ridge.