Nancy
by Christopher Barnes
There was a lyric the skippers belted out
About a Nancy
Whose gift of pleasing saved a boson
From the ice-cold fingers of a trackless deep
When others were all up and plunging
On a seething cat-fit night.
The lowlife called him Nancy boy
And with the flak he baptised himself
Queen of Hackney,
She stained beauty shop nails,
To raise at elevenses
In the borough’s workmen’s café,
Rouged her powdered mask
Refused to flinch when slashed or sprained
But stamped the lanes with stabbing heels.
This Nancy had marines too.
The love of men brought on dreams:-
In visions the fractures revived,
Bare bones of a mending life
Seen through a mist of tears
And in these fancies she clearly say
A honey-tongued trusting world.