Number One
She wore a flowered dress
and the Autumn sun
came through the glass
so light chalk dust
was a mist between me,
the window and the path
to the churchyard where
in a flint wall
coins were left
for me to find.
Was it the first day?
We copied numbers
from the board.
2 was a shape
I could not draw.
She wrote it for me
in my book.
I copied 1 down easily
and later saw
that 1 was also I.
In the picture of the class
we are looking at the lens
which looks straight back
as it buries us alive.
Chris Hardy’s poems have been published widely, some have won prizes. His fourth collection is Sunshine at the end of the world (Indigo Dreams). He is in LiTTLe MACHiNe. “A guitarist as well as a poet Chris Hardy consistently hits the right note”. Roger McGough.