Orchard Park boy, posh wanking in your parents’ king
to contraband pornos of southern descent, so that
you might rent from your mind those pockmarked slides
of you and that older girl – the Heron cashier – doing it,
you fifteen only and her pushing thirty.
(No wonder she thought you heaven-sent)
And that randy couple in Baltimore,
With its milkbottle-empty streets, who
dared to make you a project. The bastards
slipped you a card then slapped your limey ass.
(Americans, they knew what they were at)
I would not turn you landward
for neither rum nor any gold. I’d
make you captain of a schooner,
wave you off from the docks of Hull
Mapless, towards the calm of Scandinavia:
Social democracy. Pear cider. Its midnight sun.