Villon in Millerton by James Norcliffe

for Leicester Kyle



1

a plank bed in a gully

and a woman there with

a buckled mouth my hand

plunged deep in her pigfern



turpentine and tea-tree

the sour-smoke smell

of damp coal in the scuttle

and flat beer on the bench



once I stood so tall on

a stolen Triumph

my hair streamed behind

like a thousand freedoms



now I stand two miles

above flatlanders