Out Of Bounds
The sweet shop, for starters. Dabs, dibs, Creamola Foam,
anything with a fizz. The maids upstairs
in their own dormitory, who passed us a copy of Modern Sunbathing.
Travelling too far beyond the cricket pavilion,
where temptation lurked – open fields, B-roads, telegraph poles
as far as the eye could imagine. Swearing
in letters home. Singing hymns too loudly, louder than that, even.
Reading comics after lights out. And before lights out.
Not knowing the name of the Founder, his vital statistics,
which side of his sainted head he wore his glass eye.
Bill Greenwell lives in South Shields. His first collection Impossible Objects was shortlisted for a Forward Prize. In 2017 he won the Magma Editors Award. He wrote creative writing course material for the Open University before retiring.