tanya morrison who burnt scrunched up paper in
toilets & bins to get warm even if it was mid
summer was invited over/ we read some books
together on my bed but she always wanted to play
spider & fly/ this meant that i got under the sheets
whilst she held me down with a pillow over my
head/ telling me she was a spider & that i was
caught in her web/ she was trying to pin me flat
with her body/ i felt the faint sexual undertones/
the sensation of suffocation/ after a while of
spider & fly i got too hot & we went back to
reading books/ tanya's father owned the new
aquarium place up the road/ mum bought glass
spheres for her fishtank from them/ they were
dirty people like gypsies & tanya had a tuft of
black hair & dark eyes/ her pupils were black
her skin olive/ she was older than me & she
couldn't stop lighting fires/ she was always in
some kind of trouble or other/ she ran home
crying once because her father was calling her/
i thought he never even hit her but she seemed
to whimper/ mum felt sorry for her/ she was
always poor & wore holey cardigans, old striped
trousers & never had any shoes/ her feet were
brown & dirty/ she was smelly more so than my
dog rusky/ one day tanya morrison disappeared
& i never saw her again/ i was regretful/ like the
time i accidentally killed the budgie/ holding my
hand over it as it ran along the blue carpet saying
over & over 'you poor defenceless little peewee'/
i didn't know i had gone too far until i saw its
small heart beating through its breast feathers &
it couldn't run anymore/ it died from shock in the
bottom of a birdcage/ i wanted it to live so badly
i prayed to god & said 'sorry'/ mum said 'you
scared it to death'/ she was sitting by the kitchen
window/ listening to the word by word account
of my father's drunken dream/ & his tossing &
turning along the length of the lounge/ 'jesus
christ the bloody cops are knocking at the door'
