Lower Market Street, 1973

Bombed on Tuinal and Newcastle Brown,
Mad Eddie steams into our room, skids
to a halt at our bed and throws back the sheet,
squealing, 'Ah, look at the babes in the wood'.
Naked as eels, me and Richard cling to each other.
But I drop acid, I'm on the Pill. I want to be as cool
as hennaed Sadie, who's crashing on our floor,
pops Mogadon for breakfast and bares
her boyish tits without thinking, who'll steal
my green platform boots when she leaves.
Grabbing his balls, Eddie flickers his tongue
across his teeth, looking at me like he knows
about the boys I've let feel me up in alleys,
that I lost my virginity to a policeman's son
in Stanmer Park. Richard tells me I'm all woman,
I try on the tag but here come breasts, hair, blood,
here comes the creature my father couldn't have
in the house, the one who was only loveable
when she was a baby, a disc of pink vinyl,
stamped with her master's voice.