Richard Gaunt
Blazer
His parents conspired to reassure him:
in a term’s time he’d grow into it,
dad like a salesman round the back
gathering up slack between the shoulder blades,
claiming, while he adjusted it,
the cut disguised an empty-satchel chest,
lent bulk the rugby team might value.
Both cringed at mum’s shaky wolf whistle.
He wanted to ask why the cuffs
so overreached his bony wrists,
material swooping after his knuckles
to hide them, ashamed of his fragile hands;
why the stiff and unkind fabric,
electric blue, still crackled with static
like a tannoy the first week he wore it,
as if some public announcement
were forever about to be made.
Page(s) 50
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