Airfix

They came in illustrated boxes
plastic pieces 
attached to plastic sprues.
Impatient boys 
snapped off sections 
of fuselage 
wings 
tail planes
forgotten pilots 
slotted in somehow
afterthoughts 
canopied with too much glue.
Colour makes things real
Khaki drab 
Quaker grey 
Duck-egg blue.
Dogfights 
cotton-hung 
from bedroom ceilings 
Hurricane 
Messerschmitt 
Yakevlov-Yak.
Dreams of flying 
aces high 
bandits at four o’clock 
banking in
finger on the button 
juddering in short bursts
sun glinted
a tilt of wings 
and gone.