Batman In Blue Nylon

In the winter of my childhood,
the water in the fish-bowl froze
and I watched brown guppies swimming
slowly under ice.

That year I got Scalextric
and raced my right hand with my left;
cars spinning off the corners
and skidding on the lino.

I wore my dressing gown
and was Batman in blue nylon,
until mum walked in the bedroom
and said, ‘You don’t look sick to me.’

For I prayed to God for illness,
so I need not go to school,
until I saw His face in curtain folds
and wallpaper-eye diagonals.

I envied kids in comic books,
with go-karts and toboggans,
in gangs who picked on softies:
on speccy swots, not me.