When Banksy, hands skilled as a welder
crept into Port Talbot to paint that Taibach wall
the corner glistened
till the moneyman border-raided, took to himself the public goods.
 
In Ty’r Orsaf (a staging post for the plundering)
factory ash falls like snow.
A man with a decent drink in him flashes bright
thrashes out in the quiet night
— If Port Talbot cannot have it then nobody bloody well will —
He’s ready for sure for the fight
to strike a light for Wales with a can of brilliant white.
 
There’s muscle memory in the steelworks
hymns full-belted-out in chapels
from the valley heads to the sea.
Even as jobs are dangled in industrial ebb and flow
as the winding-up looms in the corners of dreams
dark as a pit whorl
dark as Thatcher’s heart
even as the jaws of mams and dads tighten at prospects dimming
still swings the ticking click of girls’ heels
the shuffle of boys from street corner to club.
In this place, where fallout falls slow on children’s tongues
and the sea-salt spray of Swansea Bay fights the oxide plume
young ones still dance and laugh and scrap on Saturday night
with all the fierce joy of Owain Glyndŵr.

Charlie Gracie is a poet, novelist and short story writer, originally from Baillieston, Glasgow, and now living on the edge of the Trossachs. His most recent collection is Belfast to Baillieston (Red Squirrel Press).