BOBBIN BOY.(Poem)

 
   He started like any other lowly bobbin boy 
   --polite, eyes brimming, the freckles on his nose 
   yet to turn twelve, his forehead creasing I 
   as he struggled to take it all in. He believed 
   our account of the man who tripped and fell 
   into the scouring vats and was pickled alive, 
   his testicles floating off with the wool 
   and ending up as bone-coloured buttons 
   on a woman's evening coat. He blushed 
   when the winding girls trapped him in a net 
   of thread, tickling him until he begged 
   for mercy. And he looked for any excuse 
   to visit the dyeing room, where ethereal 
   hues steamed out of Charlie Tinker's cauldrons 
   and the old necromancer charmed the boy 
   with his sonorous voice and his promises 
   of secret brews and confidences that he was willing 
   to pass on, once the right sort of lad 
   had worked his way up. 
 
   At first there's the novelty, the responsibility 
   of buying a packet of cigarettes for the Chief 
   Engineer 
   and the romance of the graveyard shift 
   when your labour ends with dawn, cinnamon toast 
   and milky tea in a cafe in Victoria Road 
   and an invitation to forget sleep and surf 
   the day away, riding the howlers at Coogee Beach. 
   But eventually even that passes 
   and there's only lunch by the ornamental pond 
   to look forward to, stripping the bark 
   from a tusk of brush box, flinging 
   white bread scraps onto the waterlilies, 
   where they ...