Remembering The Nineties

after Donald Davie

Our hair got smaller and the TV went on

forever. We waited

for the Stone Roses’ second album, or watched

Party of Five.In Washington,

committees gathered to frown

at what had gone on in the President’s trousers.

Northern Ireland paused for

what would eventually become

a fully formed thought. Rwanda

was a machete with names on it,

that sounded nothing like ours.

We protested French nuclear testing by

sampling South African white

wine’s new found innocence.

Osama bin Laden was a rumour

no one believed and Saddam Hussein

an occasional burst of stomach acid

up the oesophagus. We could board planes

without anyone having to see us naked

through a machine first, and made our No

to apathy heard by not bothering to vote.

While we planned trips to places

we couldn’t yet pronounce, politicians bickered

about the Romanians begging on Shop Street.

History was in the bathroom,

putting on her new face.