The morning after

They don’t get up til teatime, the girls.
They make beds out of sofas,
and duvet cocoons.
They cover the floor
with cushions
and the tables with empty glasses.

Someone knocks on the door.
He’s come all this way
with the knee he wrecked
(when he fell off his bike)
and his hopes.

‘Are you coming out?’ he wants
to know.

***

Last year’s Strawberry Fair was hot.
Boys who’d gone in jackets
(to look cool)
wished they’d left them,
ate Jamaican food,
reeled back
at the reggae tent’s entrance
and its sweet smoke barrier.

***

This year is wet.
Annie blames the bags she must watch
when some fit hot someone
wants her
(to dance, he says).
At nearly sixteen she is old enough –
almost
but not quite –
to say yes.

***

The morning after,
she is safely wrapped in feathers,
pronouncing on relationships.

***
Later she shuts the door on Dobba,
with his sore knee,
who is not fit (though he used to be),
hot, new
or exciting.