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Stephen Symons
There was the thuggery of his desk,
its pine weight and rivers of wood grain
running beneath last year’s exam papers,
roughed-up textbooks and snapped rulers.
In the corner of his office
a basket of canes awaited selection,
above it, a certificate, and then a single frosted window
that looked out onto the quad,
censoring the view, yet open far enough
so I could see grazes of cloud over blue
and he could hear the conversations of teenage girls.
Two deflated rugby balls shared a shelf above his desk
stacked with more papers in manila folders,
an empty photo frame, books about discipline
and the minds of children.
He had accused me of stealing exercise books
and sent me to his office to await a caning at the end of class.
I waited for the coming fright of the bell, wondering —
Would I be allowed
to choose a cane from the wicker basket,
or what had happened to the stolen books?
There was the shape of his deformed pinkie,
the way it defied the other fingers of his hand,
how difficult it must be to catch a rugby ball
or steady a ballpoint.
I cannot remember if he caned me,
I do remember the cherry blush of his cheeks
and fine deltas of veins,
like the petrified rivers of Mars
that spread towards
the shave-lines of his jaw
and how he put me in the A team
when I tackled Neil Parker.
Featured on 3 June 2021