I once taught poetry to a delightful girl, who was also working as a lap dancer. One day, I decided to read her my poem 'You Treat Sex like a Scratch Card', which was written for another friend of mine. However, on hearing the middle section she squealed with laughter, rolled on the floor and cried out 'How did you know about the organic milk?'. Just another little example of the prophetic power of poetry, I assured her; bemused.

She doesn't work as a lap dancer any more and I suppose I'd like to think that discovering how talented she was in the poetry department helped in that process. At any rate, I was performing the poem again on Sunday, within sight of St Pauls Cathedral, as part of a campaign against the trafficking of women into this country for sex. www.thetruthisntsexy.com and www.chaste.org.uk are challenging the demand for these 'services' and asking the governement to provide more safe houses for women who escape from the trade.

In the meantime, back to the organic milk and the odd coincidence that the poem was being performed by the 'white plaza' of St Pauls Cathedral, in brilliant sunshine, just like the vision in the poem.

You Treat Sex like a Scratch Card

You treat sex like a scratch card.
Do you think you’ll get lucky one day
And if enough cherries appear in a row
You’ll know that this time you’re OK?

You don’t pay much for your scratch cards.
You think that that’s all that they cost
But I’ve seen you walk the white plaza in sunshine
And that is a vision you’ve lost.

You treat sex like scratch cards.
They don’t even give you a thrill.
The more you lose, the more you buy
I don’t want to think of the bill.

And now you buy organic milk
And then have sex with strangers.
Do you think in the world of milk
You overestimate the dangers?

Yes, the hormone/farming issue;
I’m wholly convinced it’s real
But in the economy of grace
Is there nothing you can feel?

So now you’ve been out again and f****’d
And you feel you’re falling freely
Into self-destruct.
And you don’t think of suicide
Because you’re not that type
And Russian Roulette of the sexual kind
Is just a load of hype.

So here’s to the world of plastic balls
Of lottery prizes and draws.
But I place my bet on the day that we met
And the vision was mine and yours.






Sarah de Nordwall
www.bardschool.co.uk