Among stooped getters, grimy, knacker-bare,
head down thrusting a 3 cwt corf
turned your crown bald, your golden hair
chafed fluffy first and then scuffed off,
chick's back, then eggshell, that sunless white.
You strike sparks and plenty but can't see.
You've been underneath too long to stand the light.
You're lost in this sonnet for the bourgeoisie.

Patience Kershaw, bald hurryer, fourteen,
this wordshift and inwit's a load of crap
for dumping on a slagheap, I mean
th'art nobbut summat as wants raking up.

I stare into the fire. Your skinned skull shines.
I close my eyes. That makes a dark like mines.

Wherever hardship held its tongue the job
's breaking the silence of the worked-out gob.

My job was threading up.
That is to say the sets came down the belt,
as they passed me by
I put a green wire through four yellow beads.

The belt went by for years.
And if I wasn't thinking other things
I used to wonder what its colour was.
The sets were packed so tight you couldn't see.
Last week when it stopped I found out.
It was black.