Sitting tight
Leaden skies too late for shadows.
Chair-stacked classroom block stares back
with stark glass eyes. Playmates picked up
at the bell are halfway home to Andy Pandy,
white sliced bread with jam and sugared tea
while I am here, waiting.
Time drags unmeasured, the promised watch
six years away. One brother wears his under
the grammar school blazer cuff. Pass or fail,
the next will move on in September, no longer
filling out his junior day across the yard,
and I will not be waiting.
Till then I trudge the tarmac yard, knees puce
below my gaberdine, in a game of make-believe
that I’ll hold on till I get home. Before me lies
the long low place of secret dread, set apart,
a narrow arching entrance at each end,
but I can wait no longer.
Tiptoe in. Sharp turn right. Follow the roofless
passage wall, down the row of doors, picking one
no different from the rest. Slow hinge whine,
thud of wood on craze glazed tiles, and
there’s the godless stank-dark chamber,
where I stand and wait.
Bit by bit forms emerge: cistern’s foundry letters
caked in filth; hook-ended chain, never pulled
since that first flush when water flooded down;
cracked bowl, leaking over unknown lumps.
Someone else’s wee seeps up my trailing lace.
No place to wait around.
Close the door enough for squatting space.
Perch on the nailed wooden seat, clutching
serge knickers. There’s no paper, for
only dinner ladies have a stringed Izal roll
and always ask one sheet or two. Scuttle out
to find my brother waiting.