"I should like to
go back, through
the halls and corridors,
to stand in-line
(one last time)
scuffing wood-tiled floors -
scoring chestnut pools
with black rubber streaks -
languishing before the stalls
as we stop and start
and stop and start
like children waiting for
our school dinner:
will I be the donkey,
or the king?
I will sing a little tune.
The summer sun creeps
through amid a hum
and din of new faces;
some of the very few
I still recognise,
my own rolling between
my feet, as if
swept up by a rake,
as the headsman passes
with two full bins
looking at me like
a partridge stuffed
inside a cake.
(The snowfall of chatter
Falls thick across the nape,
And these passages swell
Like tides upon the wake,
Chasing back and forth
And back and forth
What no man can create)"