Matches

Matches

Innocent, they sat for days, possibly weeks,

pocketed in your school blazer,

the inside one that rests over the heart

secreted beneath the stitched-on badge.

Just a fistful of brown tipped matches,

looking spent and worn,

sleeping in their balsa box like colourless crayons.

Not crimson Swan Vestas

or anything fancy like that,

but there they were, living, breathing.

itching to be struck, urging to spark,

burning under cover, begging; they impel,

but the tang of smoke might kiss and tell.

Passed for safe keeping by that older mate:

Dobson, who slouches, haunting night’s corners,

his smirking cocky eye neither welcoming

or disdainful in its experience,

a passing resemblance to David Essex:

in That’ll be the Day or Stardust;

Flicking two fingers at your mother

where the one is much the other.

Forever on the brink of leaving,

tossing life’s homework into thick reeds

splitting secrets and spilling seeds.

Up well after your bedtime, late

shoulders shanked against the cold,

surrounded by the scary,

round bellied, back row girls

who taste of fags and relish lads

and fail their tests with pride.

Short terms, seeing the world

torn in two by two, after riding dodgems

or the corkscrew.

He’s waiting, beckoning you to join him,

whilst keeping close watch on his home,

because he’s mostly there alone.

Asking you for the fags with a grin,

the ones you nicked that are the passport in.

Next to his matches in your pocket.

Your dad isn’t going to miss one or two

from the score or so,

and you took three or four

just to make double sure.

Dobson flicks your blazer with amiable scorn

from within his shammy leathers;

knowing you steered clear of white feathers

you flush, when he accepts,

receiving your offered tribute graciously,

patting pockets in playful frisk,

snatches the matches that you risked,

offering them around and in return,

gifting you the least likely girl.

She sparks up, sucks and shivers,

scowls and then sweetly delivers.

Dobson heels his spent butt

into memories of the door you just shut

where Dad kind ruffled your hair as you left,

you remember it, as you slink back,

almost the same, but smelling different,

and as you push open the kitchen door,

the warmth has left it. Cold now.

He’s still there, standing by the table

and your shammy smile is hardly able

to reach him. He looks with bitter eye,

or anger, or pain, or shame:

where the one is much the other,

or the same.

Oh, he almost wants to believe it and repent:

that you thought they were used. Spent.

But he knows them, he wears them

beneath the stitched-on badge

upon his old school blazer

sitting next to his heart.

They twist the key and seal the latches,

a fistful of sleeping brown tipped matches.