On Porthcawl Sands

Dawn fluttered like a bird
From a magician's hat,
I fell asleep on Porthcawl sands,
Slipped through a rabbit-hole of time
Kids kick a football in the rain,
A bin bag blows across a field,
We're kids again, walking home from school,
There's Dexter, Joanne and me and you
Days spent talking in your room,
The smell of freshly blow-dried hair,
And when I got my first guitar
You sang along to "Reach Out, I'll Be There"
I stole a hairgrip from your bag
And hid it safe in a dry-stone wall,
When you fell for Joe McGrath it broke my heart,
He told me all he wanted was your coochie, that's all
And your Daddy drank himself to death,
I watched the rain run off the hearse,
And those winter evenings huddled in doorways,
When you'd tell me all about the stuff you'd read
When you left for college I came to see you off,
And you looked so beautiful I couldn't speak
You'd write you said once you'd found a place to stay,
When you'd gone I walked all day, I walked for miles
You came back for Christmas once or twice,
I bought you a drink and you drank it down in one,
And you gave me a book of poems by Sylvia Plath
But all our old shortcuts seemed overgrown
I helped you change a tire on your car,
And you laughed when I said I'd like to stay just how I am,
Then nobody heard of you for years,
Last we heard you'd married a marine
I still walk home past where you lived,
With the empty swing swaying in the breeze
And the feeling everything just fizzles out
And the porchlight on neat piles of raked leaves
The paint's been flaking on my life for years,
I talk to ghosts out loud at the bandstand,
If you hear me, put on your sleeveless dress
And join me here tonight on Porthcawl sands