Eyes, as old as autumn leaves

on the death mask of a child,

marble cold.

Boot black hair

carefully unkempt.

A stalk,

scarred with needle tracks

cupped beneath her witch face

still avid for spells.

But I’m no sorcerer

and heroin is not within my gift.

‘Piss off then!’ she cried

with a cripple’s touchy pride,

her trouser pocket poked out

like a tongue,

the valedictory gesture of the damned.

Peter retired in 1993. He opened a young people’s unit in 1970 for the treatment of disturbed adolescents in the North region. He began writing poetry while serving in the Royal Navy in 1943.

Another of Dr Wells’s poems was published in the November 2010 issue of the Journal.