The morning rain soaks my clothes, my hair, my skin,

I do not care. For I am  not here: not anywhere.

I look at the mortar between the crumbling bricks in this old

Wall built by the calloused hands of these men who’d served

On the Somme in 1916. Who’d been called ‘dirty scabs’

In 1929 by the striking Salford dockers. They’d hung their heads

But they had mouths to feed. They’d taken any work they could.

They’d carved their initials and the date 1929 on the granite bridge

That took them over to Quaker fields where kicking a soggy football

Had helped them forget their empty bellies, if only for a while.

Now young kids smoke skunk here, the sweet smell is always here,

Hanging heavy in the air. Their great grandfathers used Laudanum,

That concoction of opium and alcohol, then still rife, despite the law:

There is always resistance, many ways to get out of your head,

And to imagine that there could be more. So much more!