Lewis Wyn Davies

                        It’s another Saturday away from home

                        and I'm hurtling towards the capital,

                        picking up accents, mingling with tinnies,

                        trying to hide my identity while all the boys

                        wear Stoney badges on their sleeves.

                        They sway together and fill the carriage

                        with jarring songs about their Black heroes.

                        They joke about their bird being in control 

                        back home and howl like the cavemen

                        who first spoke of such roles.

                        A couple of them spot the crest on my chest

                        and ask if I'm in a firm. I suppose I am

                        through birthright – my family tree 

                        has the same crass banners hanging 

                        from the branches directly above me.

                        I ponder how I escaped the fate that befalls

                        all these boys from all these towns.

                        I think about my father and his brother –

                        who wear the gear, watch the videos,

                        read the manuals. Yet when a blue bird’s 

                        wing streaks across the Severn, or a robin’s 

                        red breast hops out of a nest, their ego is 

                        punctured. And I thank their mother for flying 

                        those banners, as the lads on the train bash 

                        cameras while marching out into Milton Keynes.