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Summer Holidays
by Aoife Mannix

There’s something about rain on a roof
that makes me feel small,
as if the years were falling in on me,
and I’m back in the caravan in Ventry.
Playing snap with myself,
because you refuse another round,
telling me patience is a much better game
for bringing the sun back.
The kids from the farm
have a game they love to play,
seeing who can hold on
to the electric fence for the longest.
The cows eye us wearily,
I can never remember
whether standing up or sitting down
tells the weather, and then sometimes they do both.
I hate the weird jolt, to the bone, up to the elbow,
and never last long.
Those country kids can hold on forever,
their eyes electric.
And they all know how to smoke,
can ride horses, swim in storms,
and head for the big city at the first opportunity.
But leaping from hay bale to hay bale,
sucking straw like cowboys,
the rain drumming on the tin roof,
a beat of every summer,
they seem to have wings,
us town kids can only dream of.

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