Sunburn always makes my mum look angry.
My cousins have run on to the end of the pier
where beery laughter bursts out of the show.

Between the wooden slats, heaving dark water
menaces far below. "Well don't look down"
she tells me, big-bellied and weary.

Smell of burnt sugar : puffs of pink heaven dissolve
in candy-floss let-down. Hard ice melts on my tongue,
twinges my loose tooth. Chips are not good for me.

In the slot my pennies, big and sticky,
start the laughing policeman rocking wildly.
I keep on watching, though he frightens me.

Screams overhead. Down here crabs are scrabbling
to escape the anglers' buckets. Gulls dive-bomb
the bobbing floats. No one catches anything.

Penny-sized circles splat the dusty slabs.
Black clouds flash, make us run for the bus.
Time to go, it's well past time to go.