A white horse stampede

A white horse stampede

Teeming across the bay

Rolling in full

Foam flecked

Wild eyed fright,

Heads tossed high

Salty waters rise

Into a broken sky

Warm with a threat of rain,

Between tides

Shoeless boys

Pick holes in the mud

Looking for crabs

Fearless

As the day wanes,

Home taught

Is what mamma said

Three years now

And Pa still dead

Publicly schooled

Yachts scud by,

A pod

Full of privileged kids

Shrieking into the wind

Invisible are the dreams

Of poor boys

With crab sticks

Strange spindly creatures

Thrown into a bucket

Listen to the rattle

Of claws on metal,

Mudlarks

Shrieking into the wind

At another find

A barrow full

Will make money

At the fish shop,

One day

There will be enough

To buy a way

Out of this muddy flat

Backwater,

He dreams of mainstream

Making waves

And high tide.