Tom Boy
by Majella Kelly
Come, climb the tall scot's pine in the churchyard
with me. We’ll watch them go in to half eleven mass.
Just don’t let Auntie Lil see you when she rings the bell.
Here, you can wear my Spiderman t-shirt; I like to climb
bare-chested, feel the twigs tangle in the ringlets
my mother makes me wear. I’ll show you how to get
up onto the flat roof of the sacristy, see how warm the tar-
black felt is under your thighs. Loll with me here for hours
against the pebble-dashery, until it’s time to go top & tail
black-currants for Dolie O'Shea. We can play pitch & toss
against the old school wall with the coppers she gives us.
Dare you to crawl under the bridge into the big cement pipe
where The Glen trickles under Lizzy Murphy's boreen.
C’mon, I’ll race you! Bet I taste like Moroney’s penny sweets
in your mouth and that first fizz of 7up up your nose.
Feel the weight of this ingot wafer-full of raspberry ripple
and Neapolitan ice-cream. I’ll give you some if you come
inside my forest fort. I’ll show you my green fern bed.
If only I could climb or crawl back far enough, I’d paint
over the grazed knees of your childhood with Mecuricome,
the deepest of antiseptic reds, and I’d tell you everything
was going to be all right.