The princes of Mercia were badger and raven. Thrall to their freedom, I dug
and hoarded. Orchards fruited above clefts. I drank from
honeycombs of chill sandstone.
‘A boy at odds in the house, lonely among brothers.' But I, who had none,
fostered a strangeness; gave myself to unattainable toys.
Candles of gnarled resin, apple-branches, the tacky mistletoe. ‘Look'
they said and again ‘look.' But I ran slowly; the landscape flowed away,
back to its source.
In the schoolyard, in the cloakrooms, the children boasted their scars of dried
snot; wrists and knees garnished with impetigo.