Sweets

I want Rainbow Drops,
sticks of Juicy Fruit,
Wham bars, Irn Bru bars,
and chalk-lolly lipsticks.
We are wearing your Mum's shoes,
her navy sling-back shoes
and clopping to the shops.
I'm not allowed to go
to the shops
on my own
so this is Really Exciting.
We've got handfuls of pennies,
and are doing impressions of
Victor Meldrew,
thinking we are hilarious.
It's sunny
but there's cold wind stinging our legs
bared in school summer dresses
and our feet in too-big shoes.
Mine have elastic straps
which are flapping round my ankles,
yours have one big leather buckle
which is clanking on the ground.
We are sporting plastic sunglasses
and spying from behind them,
laughing inexplicably at old ladies
who tut at us in return.
We really don't need the sugar rush
but here we go,
we are choosing,
20ps worth of fizzy cola bottles
making our mouths water,
stinging our lips with sugar like salt,
and you think you might have wrenched a filling out
with a penny apple chew.
The man in the shop is getting annoyed as we eat while we shop,
putting the wrappers in the cardboard bowl
so he knows what we've had:
stealing really isn't our thing,
it's what the tarty girls do
to make the boys like them
but all we really want
is just the sweets.
My mum comes to pick me up
and I don't want any dinner,
she asks me why and I say
"Oh I had some biscuits round at Jessie's house"
and hide the Wham bar wrapper
in my school dress pocket
in a sticky, sugary palm.