My Family and Other Superheroes (5 page)

With her Minnie Mouse voice and her Popeye

tattoos, she is the Queen

of mug rings. Slow-stepping in sensible shoes

with that brush, she sweeps

the world before her. Her flirtatiousness

is customer service training, her complimentary

uniform an apron, her nemeses

the teenage couple in the khazi. She

takes no prisoners and does her duty,

holds the mop's head under in the bucket,

bench-presses tables, chairs, beneath

that bouffant. Sometimes you'll catch her

humming along to the piped Nina Simone,

stealing breaks to gaze out through the window,

tuck one stray hair behind an ear. Her smile

says she'll take the clouds out of the sky

to make your latte, or if she can't reach that far,

at least she'll flutter those big eyelashes

at the tip jar. Now she turns to you:

What's it to be then, sweetie?
Look, the gold-toothed till

is open-mouthed again at all that beauty.

The Girls on the Make-up Counter

They stand and wait for you to want some me-time,

hairdos piled up like the Coldstream Guards:

they stand and wait to be your name-badged friends.

They come in close, intimate as opticians,

mascara brushes growing from their fingers.

Close your eyes,
they whisper, as you make a wish

to look like them. They smile and smile,

working hard to get your reflection right.

They'll have to do this to themselves tonight,

stand before a mirror, breathe in their waists,

mutter something, then step into a city

where every other woman wears their face.

Karaoke

Friday nights we try out other voices:

the boy with the piercing and the
HATE
tattoo

wants us to love him tender, love him true,

stumbling over the newsreader's autocue.

The landlord asks his mam to mind the bar

while he pops round to give us
My Way.
His way.

The girl who's got every boozed-up eye in the place

would like to know if we'll still love her, tomorrow;

disco lights make a superstar of her shadow.

Next morning, I rescue overalls from the washing,

button up, slip back into my own skin,

head out to the van, start it up, and find myself whistling.

Brothers

You know the sort: they borrow each other's t-shirts,

wear each other's sweat under their armpits.

In the pub, you swear you hear one's voice and turn

to find the other chatting up your girl,

or else you catch one, curling up his lip,

as if he's trying on his brother's smile,

or you go to the bar and they both show up.

One has a knackered Transit, the other jump leads.

They've one gym membership and their own bodies,

tell the punch lines to each other's jokes

and if you're fool enough to bother one,

you'll find yourself outside with both of them.

You know the sort: the elder has a child

who's got her mother's mouth, her uncle's eyes.

The Boy with the Pump-action Water Pistol

snipes from hedges at ladies fresh for chapel,

or dribbles a ball round old man Walker's Astra

to score at Wembley. He floats above the ground

on his skateboard, plays toy dinosaurs,

lives in a land beyond time. Butterflies

outwit him: his idea of hunting is applause.

Pockets full of conkers, his head of acorns,

he raids his mother's washing line for the sail

of the pirate ship he's dreamt into the garden,

then sprints off to catch tadpoles, measles, snails.

O boy with the pump-action water pistol,

here's to your ballet ankles, crash-pad knees,

these summer days I watch you through this window.

I have been careful. No one's spotted me.

The Performance

On a quiet Tuesday in our village,

workmen started putting up a stage

in the square. When Will Johnson,

who has the butcher's there, came out

to see what all the fuss was about,

he found they spoke no English.

By noon, the news was everywhere.

Some said it was all for a performance

by travelling players, others a boxing bout

between the vicar and the mayor,

or for some visiting dignitary, like the Queen

or Wayne Rooney. What wasn't in doubt

was the expense: faux-Roman pillars,

flower arrangements camouflaging speakers,

a climbing frame lighting rig, a portable

orchestra pit. Neighbours talked about it

all afternoon, claimed indifference: the baby

to put to bed, something on the telly,

but by half-six, everyone was gathered

in their best clothes. Money changed hands

for seats in the front row, while at the back,

there was something approaching an insurrection

over whether one arse cheek means possession.

Quiet settled as the performance time came

and went, and nothing happened:

by seven-thirty we were restless and thirsty

and some fella started hawking cans of beer.

The first of us stormed the stage an hour later,

swaying slightly, ready to have a go at

an a cappella
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,

got a can to the cranium for his efforts.

That started it: an industrial speaker

was put through the butcher's window,

a lily was rammed down the vicar's earhole,

some kid made monkey bars of the lighting rig,

until it collapsed and smashed, setting fire

to the now obviously polystyrene pillars.

We finished up cracking the stage with our seats:

all in all, it must have made a sight

for the workmen who then came around the corner,

with their mops and brushes, their mirror ball heads,

speaking no English, whistling to themselves.

Holiday

Unable to sleep for the fourth night in a row,

I get up, say
Fuck it,
drive to the nearest hotel.

The receptionist looks twice at my pyjamas,

the hot-water bottle that's my only luggage,

but money is money, and business is business.

The room has a double bed and double pillows.

The walls are white; there's a carpet I wouldn't have chosen.

I fall asleep before I've brushed my teeth.

It works for a week. Then the porter

calls me by my name. At four that morning,

still awake, I look for the Gideon's Bible, and find

my address book in its place. The final straw

is when I hear
Room service!
at the door.

Opening it, I find, holding silver trays,

my wife and daughter, my parents and my boss,

asking me if this is what I ordered.

On the Overpass

I like the one above the local bypass,

my parents' farmhouse lit up on the hillside,

traffic rushing under at all times.

Also, the fence is dead easy to climb,

the outside ledge just deep enough to stand on.

Don't worry. Look, I'm always sure to hold on:

now with my right hand, now with my left.

I like that moment when I'm teetering

and free. This is the second time this week.

I get so bored. Listen, here's a lorry:

it goes
Woosh.
Then the wind goes
Wuh-huh.

It's too cold to stay up here for long, really,

but I like to make up stories in my head:

is this you, lovely boy, speeding your Corsa

towards me, your friend in the passenger seat

big-eyed, looking up now through the windscreen?

Acknowledgements

Some of these poems have previously appeared in
14, Agenda Broadsheets, Cannon Poets, Cheval, The Frogmore Papers, The Interpreter's House, Iota, The Lightship Anthology 2, Magma, New Welsh Review, The North, nth position, Obsessed with Pipework, Orbis, Other Poetry, Planet, Poems for a Welsh Republic, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The Reader, Red Poets, The Rialto, Roundyhouse, Smiths Knoll, The Stinging Fly and The Warwick Review.

Some of these poems were included in a collection which won the Terry Hetherington Award in 2010. I am very grateful to Alan and Jean Perry, Aida Birch and Amanda Davies.

‘Evel Knievel Jumps Over my Family' won second place in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition 2012. ‘Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in Crumlin for the Filming of
Arabesque, June
1965' was commended in the Basil Bunting Award 2012. ‘Brothers' won third prize in the Cannon Poets Sonnet Competition 2012. ‘How to Renovate a Morris Minor' won first prize in the Newark Poetry Competition 2012. ‘Bamp' was commended in the flamingofeather poetry competition 2013.

The author wishes to acknowledge the award of a New Writer's Bursary from Literature Wales in 2011, for the purpose of completing this collection.

Thank you: Saskia Barnden; David Briggs, David Clarke and the members of the Bristol Poetry School; Michael Hulse, David Morley and the staff and students of the Warwick Writing Programme; Mike Jenkins and the Red Poets; and Amy Wack and everyone at Seren. Thank you beyond measure to my parents.