John Grey

We´re all morning scrapping
behind the bomb shelter sign;
we peek out from our hiding place
to where farmers linger by
a lowered coffin,
and a lady in black weeps;
we run down to the fudge house,
peer in the window
at women in hairnets and aprons
molding lumps of chocolate goo;
we walk under the ladder
of a painter who is
slapping the front of a bank
off-white;
we stand behind
a photographer who bends down
to snap a river swan;
some girls from school strut by
and we laugh at them
then run back to the bomb shelter sign,
where we continue
pushing and slapping at each other;
the funeral´s over,
body´s in the ground,
mourners have gone home;
an old woman yells at us
for being so loud;
but life has always been
the loud alternative.