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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Jill Pirrie

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Assembly

8:50. And the ropes hung in loops,
face-level from our balcony viewpoint.
Below, smooth blondes flowed into darkening perms;
Brylcreem boys’ partings had been drawn with knives.
The wall clock jerked forward.
No ticking, just six hundred heart-beats
as the prefect read and no-one listened.
8:58. And a hundred miles near
another child rose from his chair.
Clumsy, he lurched against the table.
Later, they said He didn’t seem to feel it.
We sang out our tension in a hymn.
But a different passion was played out that day,
with the same sick excitement thickening
at a small and ugly death in a corner;
corruption sweet and rank as rotting flowers,
it seeped from bench and throne to fill our minds.
9:02. And we filed out to Maths.
Bentley’s dead remarked Brenda.
Tabloid toughened, the words flicked over her shoulder
to fall casual as sparrows on the breakfast lawn.

 

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