Many, many years ago I had a very frightening experience. I was young – around 14 – and my life pretty much revolved around playing the cello. I joined an orchestra in Lincoln, which is a fair drive away from my hometown. An older man, must have been sixty-plus, used to give me a lift there. There were usually several of us, but this one night I was alone with him on the journey home. He stopped his car and made a very inappropriate move. It was dark, and he had pulled his car over to the side of the desolate country lane. I screamed and went ballistic, which must have taken him aback, as he quietly drove me home.
That is the backstory for this poem. Blackpool Tower is a metaphor, but I won’t explain and ruin the images your mind will weave as you read!
The layby takes me back to the lanes not lit up like Blackpool Tower, where I fell, illuminated by blown bulbs. I should not have been hitching rides with dirty men, him telling me we couldn’t make babies with his thing choked in rubber. His death would be better. I would prefer a cadaver. Stiff fingers, curled, like questions. His wife. Evenings, he slipped into her. The usual in, out, in, out. Nothing in it for her. Never is. Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022
the starry-eyed mermaid 