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The world was going to end in nineteen fifty-nine,
according to my grandma. I know; she told me so.
Not because of Russia and its threats of nuclear war,
but because Italians had moved into the house next door.
"The street, the neighbourhood, will rapidly decline,"
That's not what my friends and I thought, though.

My mum was just as bad, "they've painted their door bright red.
Brown is the only colour for a rightly English door.
Just look at it," she moaned each time we walked the street.
"Some people just don't understand, the nerve, conceit!"
"And have you seen the clothes she wears?" "You wouldn't catch me dead."
But my friends and I; well, we all said; blimey, cor.

My dad took me aside one day; sat me down, and said,
"Take care, the folk next door are not like us at all.
They're Jews or Catholics; one or the other;" he confines.
"I saw them all out yesterday dressed right up to the nines,
walking with a bag of fruit and strange-shaped bread."
My friends and I didn't care; they had an ice cream stall.

We became good friends; me, and the boys next door.
We pricked our thumbs and pressed; became blood brothers.
I learned cool words; Bellissimo, Chao; and in Italian how to cuss.
And in return, I taught them English words like grotty, snot, and puss.
Grown-ups were wrong about Italians moving in next door.
When you make friends, there is no them or us, or others.

Jaundiced Eye Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
Date wrote: 20-June-2021

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