Malcolm Povey
Orange Lesson
‘I-ron’, she pronounced, and ‘I-ron’ her regime.
In the tropical sun fattened oranges,
An enormous green, and ‘I-ron’.
The burglar bars policing the window
Through which I passed a fat green sun,
Eyes too big for my stomach, at the Christmas feast
At Ghana International School, to the black boy,
Who, in grizzled middle age, hosed the tatty roses,
Imitations of the shires, shrivelling on their stems,
And brought us orange squash in splashy plastic cups.
Orange her hair, to me, though auburn, I guess, to her,
Helmet-hard, an ‘I-ron’ certainty in the blade
Of her voice, as she venomed the boy, how dare he
Take chop from white massa. Then, placing the green sun
To shine on crumbling cliffs of mince pie,
Above puddles of squash under ant-attack,
Smiled her best Presbyterian smile and ‘I-roned’
To her class of pink, brown and, just one, black face,
‘You mustn’t be nice to them. They aren’t people like us’.
And I burned red, red, a greedy white boy
Passing his guilt to a poor, black man.
My black American pal, Rob Freeman, sat quiet,
Hacking our eclipsed sun, handing me a slice,
And the woman of ‘I-ron’ ordered the boy,
‘Take for kitchen small massa’s cups’.
Page(s) 39
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