Hollie McNish reflects on how adulthood changes perspectives on the friendships of childhood and teenage years. This is a sample from her warm and candid new collection, Plum (Picador Poetry, £9.99). She won the 2016 Ted Hughes Award for Poetry.

 

            CALL ON ME

             for all friends

 

we don’t call on each other anymore

we all live too far away

and now impromptu visits worry you

might interrupt my day

~

you do not wake me up

on weekends

with screams pitched

to my bedroom  glass

~

do not ring my doorbell

more than once

politer now

step off the mat

~

now we must plan to meet

in diaries

don’t dance in pjs/

share the bed

~

you do not comb my hair

for hours, to practise plaits

- drink tea instead

~

I love you still, my friends

I count our meetings down like holidays

but dream each time the doorbell rings

it’s you,  just called to play