Lorraine Carey

Splinters

January snow clouds hang like threats, 
the air sharp as nettle stings.
I’m new to the village school where
a morning bell clangs the cue to line up
for circle time. Packed tight as ice floe 
penguins, we recite times tables 

in sing song, until Miss demands the palm 
of the girl who gets them wrong: belts so hard, 
the wooden ruler snaps leaving a plum-dark 
weal. Breaktime’s spent circling
the icy yard, a respite from the musty 
prefab where Miss stashes rulers in a desk 

drawer with cigarettes. She smells 
of mothballs and Panstik – which 
does nothing to disguise her yellowing skin.
With a swish of plaits, a girl from 
the class below pulls me aside and barks, 
go back to England where you belong. 

I lose my West Midlands accent, segue 
to speak like the rest of them; adopt their 
bucolic ways, their suspicion of anyone 
different, their tribal mores.
It takes years to undo the conditioning
of a small place called home.

Back to Issue XII…