School Days

The child at desk 'one', head deep
In italic script, will not leave the classroom
Even for playtime - this is her salvation;
All of eight years old, plotting escape routes,
She does not bite her nails or show obvious distress:
She will coal-pick under hedgerows
Tonight at twilight when the neighbours cannot see,
There is no money for a fire and no T.V

Pouring over harder and more complex mathematics
Same child, striving for top position knows
This is where they make or break your chance
Of freedom - in her mind's eye she sees
The glory of grammar school tie and satchel.
Three years yet to wait the test,
Prepare for entry to a foreign culture;
Returning to school at dinner time she says
In passing to a skipping chum,
'My mother left this morning;
I don't know where, I don't know where
She's gone."

Results one August through the letter box,
Your daughter/son has been selected;
'And what will you do now?' says dad,
'What will you do now given this education?'
First and only one in the family to pass,
She wears the dark blue blazer with such pride,
Her heart is fit to burst; she has her course mapped,
Even now, on University - career planned
Aged eleven.

The Hoover broke down later in the day;
She spent three hours cleaning mats by hand -
Just missed the library - she has no books,
Other than 'Alice in Wonderland' given as a present
Once,
For her ninth birthday party.

She is staring at a white emulsioned wall
One morning of March as winter
Turns to spring. A young man of twenty five or so
Is hanging his arms in a bucket of hot water;
The people here with strange, distorted faces
Do not see through dull and drug glazed eyes
The frightened child shivering in a corner;
Nurse is nice and says it will not hurt,
Just a small pain in her head and temporary
Loss of memory.

On waking after 'treatment', half a million brain cells
Murdered at a stroke,
She is slightly sick and does not now remember
No T.V, no Hoover, lack of coal;
But neither does she see the varnished desks,
Or grassy dell where sixth form learn their French.
Just in her teens with past and future gone,
When her head clears tonight at dusk,
She will, if left alone, reflect
In half dazed torment,
How the planning all went wrong.

Jan