When I sang my song about the bungalow in Luton
and I said that my father cleared the snow
making a line to mark the neighbour’s bit of pavement
over which he wouldn’t go,
my sister told me that this did not ring true.
She reminded me
that when a bungalow resident left their washing on the line
with the weather, nice and fine
and then went out to the shops, say,
when the rains came,
a neighbour would come
and take the laundry off the line
and into their own dwelling for you.
An act of telling camaraderie
indicated Angie,
Angie who once upon a time
would sit in the grate
scoffing coal out of the scuttle,
like it was chocolate.
Dad used to tell us, ‘Use a plate’
but not in such an instance.
And Angie took the goldfish from their chilly little bowl and softly stroked them.
She didn’t get the difference
between the different kinds of pet.
Yet, now she is a different kind of Angie:
fossil fuel she never eats
although occasionally she does present her family
with the odd dead fish or two.
Angie Boo.