An Urban Myth by Suzy Aspell

(after ‘We Real Cool’ by Gwendolyn Brooks)

Summer passes, autumn arrives, days cool

as the racoons scoot skedaddle, rattle the cans

in the school yard, lurk late at night and we

watch them with furtive eyes. Urban bandits

nesting in sewers, striking straight for our

leftovers, human garbage, we envy their

devious ways, their dextrous hands. We yearn

to don dark eye masks, abandon our families

and with our jazzy raccoon gang, we’ll

saunter off to the bar, sink long glasses of gin

while arguing, knock out a song for a sinner

or two, hustle pool with drunken bums until

insults hurl a twister. Fists and cues a blur,

hauled out by the scruff of our necks, kicked

out into the bleak, dank air, scraps of detritus.

Deep in their dens, opportunistic raccoons

enter torpor.

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Suzy Aspell (she/her) lives and works in Luton, Beds. Suzy wrote, produced and directed two plays for the Civic Centre in Tainan, Taiwan, on British pantomime theme. Suzy is working on a pamphlet of global statues exploring themes of feminine cultural and historical tradition. Twitter: @susisu371