Susan McCormick
Gothic
On Sundays, we were brown crocodiles
gliding over the common in afternoons,
and mornings along pavements to church –
if we fidgeted overmuch, the wrack
was delivered by Matron who was never a maiden,
was the colour of white and black
though blood flowed from her finger nails
and her ice breath could chap necks
if we sat in front of her.
At boarding school we learned the vital
things, like sitting bolt upright,
punctuality, how to seem invisible.
My Bobby Burns’ burr was a boil
that was lanced; I learned to read aloud
with my voice on one level.
It was two hundred years before I left,
and my eyes were red then, not hazel.
Page(s) 21
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