HYMN

How I love the working-class girls of Leeds,

Their mile-wide smiles, eyes bright as beads,

Their young breasts bobbing as they run,

Hands quick as darting fish, lithe legs

Bare as they scramble over the Hollows

With brown-soled feet and dimpled bums

Half-covered with knickers, and short frocks

Full of flowers and their delicate ears,

Perfect teeth and flickering tongues, the

Fragile bones of their cheeks, the soft

Sweetness of their soprano voices dying

Away into the unforgotten magenta and

Yellow-ochre of innumerable twilights.