Wide eyes roll

Wide eyes roll

Starkly white

All morning stuck in the blind

Shuttered in the coalhouse

Left on a whim

To be stripped bare

Violated by the vermin

Warm-bodied scuttlers.

The skin scratch

The taste of blood

Smelling

Like a snot rag

Hard as nails

Spreadeagled

On a lumpen bed.

Night terrors born of this

Exposure.

Release the Canary

Curl up on the slack.

Heavy breathing,

Choking on bedsheets

The texture of cement.

Lightly covered bruises

Fatted lips

Swollen calves

Skinned fingertips.

The stink of sweat

Billowed in coal dust

Daubed on brick walls.

As hours become days

No escape for minors

Coalface terror

Is nothing to get used to.

Wave a Davey Lamp

Be neither seen nor heard

Bonny lad

Find a moment

To recover

Before the back shift

Brings it all down.