Mrs Myers

 

Squat, with a trace of a moustache, you crinkle

currant eyes as you hand back my essay

about foolish Othello on a sticky lemon afternoon.

 

Stumpy, hair bristling with brains,

in a voice like burnt toast you broadcast

no-nonsense advice to the lower sixth:

 

Don’t work on
Saturdays for Timothy Whites

Don’t sell your youth
for nineteen and nine

You’ll never get it
back again 

 

Mrs Myers, I take home what you say.

Parrot it to my red-cheeked mother, who pauses

from her assault on the aluminium pots and pans, 

 

lifts her nose and sniffs, as if she can scent

your odour of chalk, rose talc and something

musty, like a trunk left too long in the loft.

 

I didn’t know you’d vanish soon after

I left the perfume counter.  Mrs Myers

you gave me a push, a nudge.  See how far

 

I’ve come along the uneven path,

passing the ducklings scudding the ditch

while you’re still wearing those wooden beads,

 

that too-long cardigan, still holding

a pile of books wedged under one withered arm.