Fockynggrove
The artist who exhibited a seven-foot black velvet cock
in the gents’ toilets at the junction of Park Row
and Woodland Road
and the not yet ex-husband, his knickerless mistress
fogging the lift’s mirrored walls
in the multi-storey car park
and the scrag cuts and mullets in double denim
all exploratory hands and tentative tongues
round the back of the ice rink
never knew that the ground beneath their feet
this hill rising up under tarmac was once called
Fockynggrove
but the bay trees pot-bound in terracotta
valerian seeded in cracks in walls
the buddleia thrusting through gaps in railings
feel the pulsing through their roots
the longing for stories to tell themselves
recreate old echoes.
Deborah Harvey’s poems have been widely published and broadcast on Radio 4’s Poetry Please. Her four collections are published by Indigo Dreams, the most recent being The Shadow Factory (2019). She is co-director of The Leaping Word poetry consultancy.
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