When does
boyhood end?
For some
it’s leaving school
To get a job
or leaving school
To get no
job at all, or buying
A drink for
the first time on your own
Or the first
time, properly that is,
With a girl or having to shave
The bristles
off and not just fluff
Or for some
the day you learned to drive
Or the day
you had to dress
In a suit
and tie for a grandad’s
Funeral or
else some other
Personal,
private, unforgotten thing,
Too personal
in fact to mention.
For me, the
night my father
Left me to
the boat will count for that.
Eighteen and
able to marry,
Able to
vote, able to fight
In her
Majesty’s Army, I was still
Inside a
child, away to university
In England
in a Liverpool ferryboat,
Packed tight
with home-bound
Squaddies,
watching at two or three
In the
morning, the lights of
The Isle of
Man sail by
As I stood
on the deck and felt the cold
Wind rise on
the Irish Sea and
Heard the
gulls and knew that when manhood
Starts, in a
sense, you’re on your own.
➽Philip Orr is a Carrickfergus writer
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