musée mia burrus

A Scarborough Childhood

A one lane bridge, Scarborough fair!
A parsimony; a prayer
no use. The sage and sober will
negotiate the way with care,
 
but not prince Valiant! The thrill
is cheap as life, (what doesn’t kill
you makes you strong as tin.)  O down
the icy night we ride until
 
we crest the hill Over the Town,
and like Chagall propelled we sound
the stars, the flush - it pales the skin.
Below, the streetlamps dot the ground.
 
I search in dreams my empty tin,
the golden coin to find therein.
 
 

By day I search my empty tin,				
and hoard kind words, though paper thin	.			
Valiant passengers, we are
rendered fearless, lost within

our involuted mother-sphere.
Callowly I persevere.
I march my youthful groundless road,
steeled with middle-class veneer,

polished in that spit-shine mode.
Armoured in my tin, I showed
the world a glow; and yet made not 
of solid stuff, I searched for gold.

In time the sun-coined forest wrought
a golden solace so long sought!