ISSUE: Winter 2018
I was daubing s onto our front step with the blood and guts of clover mites
when Speccy Rab headbutted BA—which didn’t end well for Rab’s glasses.
Under the Coalman’s instruction, Rab painted the kerbstones from the entry
—red-white-blue—and BA began at other end, at Malvern Way.
When they met halfway…both their final stones were bound for white.
Snailing by, Pearl Mahon jabbed her bull’s cock cane: “You boys can’t count.”
Clover mites squished on red brick are redder against the bricks’ orange.
I stuck one in my gub to taste it and you’ll never guess what—
just like strawb’ryade. Chuffed with myself, I jouked over the front wall
at Speccy Rab’s tiny eyes,
then down at the pulverized glass from his lenses on the tarmac.
From then on, there’d be no more yelling “wanker!” at strangers from my end.
From then on in it wasn’t right to call a clover mite “blood spider.”
Things were kept in order, with the correct name and the right color.
