“Us English”

Us English are a country
                                        of boat people.
Waves washed in the craft of Neolithic, Beaker folk, Celts,
          before ever the Romans
                    came and saw and conquered.
          And which of us have not settled
in the settlements of Angles, Saxons,
                              Jutes, Frisians, Franks?
Or swayed on the tube and tram as
          Danes and Vikings
                    on the aft decks of their dragonships?
          Us Normans rub along with traders, troubadours,
seekers after life and the curiously off the map.
                    William of Orange is old news.

Clare Bryden “Us English”, Elsewhere, “Palimpsest”, 19 December 2025.