after R. S. Thomas
Come on, and move back west with me.
The bright girls from the valleys will say
they can’t hear the difference in English accents,
I won’t know if they are lying, but I’ll laugh.
Maybe in Cymru we can match – until I split myself
down an unforgettable seam, to show them
coal dust in my lungs, blackened blood matching theirs,
the threat of a red brick still hanging in the air.
England forces itself between each of us
and you cannot live in the present.