Sentinel
Poetry #35 – October 2005 Online Magazine Monthly…since
2002. ISSN 1479-425X
Cathy Anne Stevens
Passing Out
I didn't have the luxury of manilla,
Enveloping my potential shame.
One by one they're searching my face
As I hand them over-
My bland smile for each, an
anonymity;
Giving them the choice,
Crow or cry
Or find some warm burrow in which to rip it open.
Eleven years back, it was
Bare on the wall of the unit:
Name.
Number.
Grades.
I hovered, puppy thighs quivering,
Cold sweat clinging to cheap fibres.
There, at the mineshaft of the classroom door,
Reading not from the list
But from Sir's eyes.
Behind me, distant
The hum of my mother's expectation
Parked and waiting in the school car park.
If I failed, I knew I would have to vanish;
Join the legendary boy who hurled himself from the
top of `A' Block
- or did he hang by a nylon
tie?
No, stabbed to death with a bic!
I couldn't; useless cowed lump.
I knew I'd drag the millstone,
10 heavy Fs,
Back, and she would smile with red eyes
Thinking of cheap retake colleges
with every soothing pat.
`Beakers Tate', we called him
His bland grin fooled no-one.
I took a gulp of air, braced,
Plunged into the abyss.
...As I teetered up to the listings
His eyes were creased, gold behind thick specs.
I floated from that dark place on paper wings.
Alive and Great.
I could do anything.