1. the lobby
In the silly lobby,
a nothing-room
between the front door
boys were not allowed to use
and one half-glass
that opened on the hall
where I stood waiting in my squeaking shoes
to watch you leave,
you,
hesitating like a fly
on pages of an open book
before it slams
shut, turned with something painful in your eye
to brush away
and brush away again,
then spoke a word
I never heard.
The bell rang overhead,
its flurried notes collapsing in each other’s arms
to make a single sound.
I had to go.
2. the writing case
Soft pale brown leather
with a suggestion of crocodile
and a zipper round three sides
to keep secrets
or lay everything open.
Inside, strapped down
in places reserved for them,
one full pad of Basildon Bond,
one black fountain pen,
and a dozen pale blue envelopes
addressed to you
in your own girlish script,
with a message reminding me
to tell you how I felt,
which I would never do.
3. two windows
Chin-high with a windowsill
handy to keep me quiet
I stared myself blind:
the foreground cedar
with its broken arm
dangling in purplish light,
lake water beyond
flickering not quite identical
agile slither and slop,
then fields farther still
and hedges careering a hundred miles
back to familiar ground
too painful to think of now,
with you in another window there
too much like thin air.
4. the boathouse
Sky exhausted by flying
rested its weight once upon
the roof of the boathouse:
and fair-weather clapboard walls
instantly lost faith
in right-angle connections,
while wind dogs rampaged in
to play mud games
and snap the spine of the punt.
But the broad squared-off prow
glued to earth now,
a net of broken shadows
cast by ivy and vines,
conspired with bulrushes
to make a secret crease
in the cloth of space and time
where I could lose myself.
I saw on the epic lake
a single meringue swan
with wings half-lifted up
as though about to fly,
the black canvas feet
drearily thrusting clear
of muck stirred by its passage.
5. lights out
Lights out never came
soon enough,
but when darkness finally
fell, that was its own river
in spate and hard to cross.
As footsteps softened away
down the long stair reporting
outrageous shifts of weight,
boys in beds on every side
began to cry,
as thoughts of home
which we had saved all day
were now let loose
in sobs and choking gulps,
in stifled wails,
until, when sleep allowed
a mockery of silence to descend,
moorhens on the lake outside
burst out instead
in sudden fits of clattering
and metal honks
as madness took hold
and they tried to walk on water,
then crash-landed.
6. in the classroom
White hours in class,
the blackboard
dead center
and sunshine in fits
keeping track
of the cost in dust
as a stick of chalk
maintained its murmur
or suddenly squealed
the meaning of meanings
revealed to me.
I was learning fast
how timorousness
(from the Latin timor, meaning dread)
paved the way for stupidity.
7. physical jerks
Every first thing
in white singlets and shorts
we made our mark on the gravel forecourt
with starbursts and running on the spot
while Mercury in our midst,
the god of speed and boundaries,
stalled on his stone plinth
and the dead I had yet to meet
churned in busy air
waiting like us for the nod
of his staff with its writhing snakes
to escape to the underworld.
8. the thaw
Everything always going away
including pins and needles of ice
doubled on pins and needles
the cedar wore instead of leaves,
which warmth would run together
as soon as the sun returned.
9. in the study
The unlit corridor,
a black canal of air,
staggered midway
then braced straight,
shoulder-high oak paneling
and liverish tile floor
coloring in the glow
from the hallway ahead,
which led
to the fuggy study where boys
guilty of breaking rules
went to be punished.
Nobody ever spoke.
All of us felt already
pipe-stained fingers grip
the hot napes of our necks
in order to bend us over;
that, and the frisky air
which breathed in fits and starts
coldly over our bare
buttocks and thighs
before the caning began.
Then with purring like a wave
withdrawing over sand,
the door before us
opened, one in tears came out,
and in the next one went.
10. underground huts
We trekked to the Wilderness,
dug holes in the rooty ground,
laid planks on top,
and stamped the earth back
leaving a foxhole entrance.
Now we were nowhere,
willing to make do
with whatever news
a trickle of mud might bring
or snug compressions of air.
Who goes there?
But no one ever, no one.
I sucked on my cigarette
of pine needles and Bronco
and teetered once again
at the edge of the known world
where I heard the roaring waters
and the fall began.
11. the boundary
By the iron fence
marking the boundary of the old estate
I parted a curtain
of tall parsley and grass
then lay on my belly to look
down one of the many hundred
avenues of mud
running through drills of wheat
and saw below in a fold
of land like the crook of an arm
the utterly silent farm,
the barn with its red-tiled roof,
the wind-vexed yard,
and the farmer in wellington boots
with a collie dog at his heels
spiraling round on itself
while waiting to hear the word
about whatever came next.
12. the front gate
In sheer desperation
I set my alarm
for the smallest of small hours
and let myself out
by a downstairs window
to walk around in the dark.
The ruined cedar tree
paralyzed by starlight;
the sullen mercury lake;
goalposts dressed in mist
eroding their alphabet;
and by the front gate
with its slippery cattle grid,
the main road to and fro,
and cars with somewhere to go
bending their angry lights
on me in my dressing gown
with my hair on end.