by Mark Haddon
bully they have ever known.
But everybody wants to slip
their flesh off like a winter coat
and enter this familiar room
that smells of gas and beeswax,
where sunlight pours from the big window
and the freighters move continually
in the river’s mouth.
FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, APRIL 2006
Copyright © 2005 by Mark Haddon
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd, London, in 2005.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Earlier versions of some of these poems appeared in Acumen, Boomerang, Reactions, Stand magazine, and the Evening Standard. “Poets” and “The River-Car” were published in the Arvon International Poetry Competition Anthology 2000.
The Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49819-9
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.0