Fay And The Day In The Park Poem by Terry Collett

Baruch took the bus
to Kennington park
he wanted to see
a different place

away from the usual
the familiar sights
and people
he had brought

Fay along
having paid
her bus fare
and saying

they’d not be late
(she worrying
about her father
getting home from work

and finding
that she'd not
completed her
school essay

on The Ten Commandments)
and also
that she was with him
(whom her father

termed the Jew boy)
and he said it was better
if she never saw him
which was impossible

as they lived
in the same
block of flats
and went by

each other
on the stairs
but her mother knew
and said

to keep it quiet
and gave Fay a 1/-
for an ice cream
and drink of cola

they walked around
the park
she gazing
at the flowers

and butterflies
and birds
and he imagining
Injuns about

to pop out
of the bushes
or over
the small mound

(he called a hill)
on their mixed
coloured horses
and firing arrows

from their bows
or shooting
from rifles
and as he walked

he patted
the 6 shooter gun
in the holster
hanging

from the belt
of his jeans
(hidden
by his grey jacket)

she talked
of the nun at school
who slammed
a wooden ruler

on the palms
of girls
who didn't know
their catechism

all through
and the girl
who had her
legs slapped

for wearing
her school dress
too short
(she'd outgrown it

and her parents
couldn't afford another)
and he talked
of the cowboy film

he'd seen the other day
where the cowboy
wore his two guns
back to front

so that he had to
cross hands
to reach them
and still out drew

the bad guys
and which he wanted
to practice until
he had it just right

she listened to him quietly
taking in
his hazel eyes
the wavy hair

and that
bright eyed stare
and he listened to her
gazing at her

as he did so
at her fair hair
held in metal hair grips
her blue eyes

her pale complexion
that nervousness
she seemed to have
as if her father

was going to leap out
at her from a bush
and the bruise
on her upper arm

he'd seen
when she removed
her cardigan
having got hot

in the midday sun
and after walking around
for a while
and then sitting

looking at some
old guy feeding birds
with broken bread
they bought two ice creams

and bottles of cola
and she said
a grace in Latin
and he mumbled

some Hebrew prayer
and they sat licking
and eating
and drinking

and once she kissed
his cheek shyly
and said they'd
best get home

before her father did
and he saw her
with him
the upstairs Jew

(as her father
termed him)
and gave her
what for

as soon
as she went
timidly
through the front door.