Don't You Wish You Weren't Here?


I want to take all of my washing up
and dump it into Great Yarmouth sea.
I want the waves to ride over saucers,
lift and gently spin cups round and inside out,
every white foamy finger chipping away at the dirt ingrained rim.
I want the rough, coughing air to hack away at the spores in my kitchen.
I want it to blow in the back door, in a louche manner,
and crumple into one of my armchairs propped against the back wall.
Take up residence for a good fortnight,
can of skol and B ‘n’ H in limp-wristed hands.
Cos I’m worried about the spores in my kitchen
– the growths on our plates,
mossy grey fuzz that lingers like roots of balding men’s hair.
There are bones in my kitchen, which we dug up out from under our shed
– a kid size snooker table which fits underneath my bed.
If Great Yarmouth came to my kitchen
we’d run out of plastic cups.
There’d be no ice for cocktails
and crushed ciggies under foot.
We could have clams for breakfast though
or jellied eels and chips.
I could dance with old ladies in my kitchen
and play crazy golf across the lawn,
watch boyracers in ford fiestas racing ‘til their mothers shouted them home.
Great Yarmouth and me, we'd have fun
in my kitchen, with the low-life grime.
We could have sex in the dark underneath the sink and pretend it was the pier,
scoffing candy floss afterwards we write postcards:
‘Don’t you wish you weren’t here?’
Then throw up beer a lurid pink colour, menacingly camp,
end up kissing with sticky lips just before licking the stamp.