David Cromby

Dock Road Cafes

In crinkled Dock Road cafes
Bacon meets egg again and again
Under the bobbing
Tight steel knots of hair
That seem screwed on
The heads of hardy women
Who are easy to laugh 
Either at themselves or at men’s tales 
But just as likely
To clout you round the ear
Or scowl through scarves
And shake skinless forearms
With sprouting fists
Scrubbed bleached and stiff.
 
The weekend sucked their wages          
Into drunken quests
Retold with Monday breath
And wet with tea cup steam
From crispy haired Dockers’ mugs
Climbing a mouth
Like river whispers
That welcome the morning
And call to the quay
The denim skin sailors
In crinkled Dock Road cafes.

Midnight Break

An insecure archaeologist
Chasing another soul’s life
Grasping at personality
And interesting conversations
With ancient coffin dwellers
But none would speak
Which she took personally
And cried.
 
A heavy soldier
In cabbage patch camouflage
With objectives of death
Lashed to his shoulders
Hoping to see his wife again
Whispers to a friend
‘Is this where I must die?’
 
Under a surgical sunset
Sat an empty nurse 
Trying to swallow
Guilty bites of tuna and mayo
But her midnight break
Was dominated 
By premature loss
In parent’s faces.
And she spilt her milk.

The Last Of The Christmas Sweets

How long have we lay here?
Sweating in foil shrouds
Hoping for fumbling fingers
To tighten and choose.
 
The children will smile I was told
Ripping at my clothes
Desperate to strip me
Through dizzy excitement
Freeing my smell
Lifting through kisses
To climax 
In a frenzy of swallows.
 
But still on remand
I’m picked up and put down daily
Seemingly always
Lacking in temptation
No subconscious salivation
For me. 
 
Will I see Easter?
A pupil repeating a year
Snubbed by the cleverest eggs
Eat me before I cry.