This week, we're venturing into another form of literature - the poem. Behold Carol Ann Duffy's 'Descendants':
Most of us worked the Lancashire vineyards all year
and a few freak redheads died.
We were well-nuked. Knackered. The gaffers gave us a
bonus
in Burgdy and Claray. Big fucking deal, we thought,
we'd been robbing them blind
for months. Drink enough of it, you can juggle with
snakes, no sweat.
Some nights, me and Sarah went down to the ocean
with a few flasks
and a groundsheet and we'd have it off three or four
times in a night
that barely got dark. For hours, you could hear the
dolphins rearing up
as if they were after something. Strange bastards. I like
dolphins.
Anyway. She's soft, Sarah. She can read. Big green
moon and her with a book
of poetry her Gran had. Nuke me. Nice words, right
enough, and I love the girl,
but I'd had plenty. Winter, I goes, Spring, Autumn,
Summer, don't give me
that crap, Sarah, and I flung the book over the white
sand, and into the waves,
beyond the dolphins. Click-click. Sad. I hate the bastard
past, see,
I'd piss on an ancestor as soon as trace one. What
fucking seasons
I says to her, just look at us now. So we looked. At each
other.
At the trembling unsafe sky. And she started, didn't
she, to cry.
Tears over her lovely blotchy purple face. It got to me.
