Wednesday’s Homework
(Set: five Latin verbs, an essay on Lord Palmerston
and problems on a parallelogram.)
Walks home with Jinks, who says the girls are on
for Saturday, straight now. That Joan, she fancies him.
And home, Mum’s there, cold squash, Swiss roll.
(Her breathlessness is not so bad today.)
Just hope his father will be in for supper
and won’t go out again tonight.
(Writes history essay.)
His father’s back, the whisky smell’s quite light.
(Does the verbs, the parallelogram.)
Reads just a chapter more in Copperfield
and then a wodge of Biggles. Some television,
bed and the radio beneath the bedclothes,
Radio Luxembourg’s cave of sentiment.
Now really remembers Saturday and Joan, the girls,
the O My God of it. Downstairs
his Mum’s, his Dad’s, two voices blur
to a hum beneath the television set.
So pleased his Dad’s not out again tonight.
The letter’s still on the hallstand though,
the hospital one.
Robert Nisbet was for some years an associate lecturer in creative writing at Trinity College, Carmarthen. His poems appear in magazines such as The Frogmore Papers, The Interpreter’s House, Dream Catcher, The Journal, Prole, Scintilla and Hobo Camp Review (USA).