Adolescent Longing in the Newsagents
We need experience not salvation — that comes later
For all the men inadequately fed
hungry for milk & oral sensation
the top shelf existed. We craned our necks
memories of mother’s breast, mouths agog.
Starting early on the walk to school
passing Martins’ newsagent we went in
ostensibly scanning for What Car? magazine
Infantile longings hiding beneath a need for speed
lust & theft shackled together, never mind deception
one sin a gateway to another. I grabbed a copy
of Peaches and stuffed its smaller A5 pages into
the A4 magazine reluctantly paid for with pocket
money, grubby fingers tightly clasping both
as I anxiously held up the back cover
praying the cashier wouldn’t touch it
bar codes still a distant reality.
In the cloakroom, my stock rose, boys
gathering for soft, luxuriant flesh stapled
yet falling from pages, feasting their gaze
on curves both missed & needed.
We shall know them by their fruit
the man said, O! rock of ages! But we
were beyond salvation. As St Augustine
declared, Lord make me chaste, but not yet!
Copyright Simon Heathcote
