supposedly: if I am to render
‘a man’ then
this ‘man’ must I guess resemble me‹›

The nun in charge of the children is thin, her back straight as punishment.

You try doing star-jumps, steps,
or squats, in knee-high wellies.

I was born in a town of shadows.

She was only a little woman
five feet nothing in nylon stockings.
‘If I stood sideways they’d mark me absent.’

When she said ‘could’, it was clearly in italics
and when she said ‘one day’, the creak of glaciers
shuddered around its edges.

the days are long but the years are short.
seconds are tiny kitchen knives in my back.
i stopped reading Dickinson, her voice is a sad parrot.

Faces, unless they come swimming up close. are a blur of piggy-pink and ice-
cream. In the street, she doesn’t know, cannot be certain when to smile, when to
look away

The teacher is an old spindly man. Grim, out of a Grimm’s tale. Scarecrow hair, thinning. Unsmiling.