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.