Chalk by Clair Wright

Pleats swinging, square heels pick across the school hall

She lifts the needle, the music stops.

Ageless, yet ever-middle-aged

Face pink, scrubbed, brisk,

Hair neat from its weekly set

She surveys us in our cross-legged rows.

The conductor of an orchestra, she opens

With an overture of “good mornings”

Chorused in unison.

She directs, with an eyebrow,

The teacher at the piano stool

A cheery hymn to sunshine and obedience.

One hundred faces raised to hers -

Deliverer of stern words, gold stars, boiled sweets,

The epitome of school.

But then

For two summer weeks, a revelation:

Marooned in the hall, a single table, set for one,

With ceremony, the television set

Resplendent on its trolley

Is wheeled in place.

Unmindful of two hundred wondering eyes,

Of clatter and chatter, spills and splatter,

Dining alone on shepherd’s pie and treacle sponge

But tasting strawberries and champagne

She is absorbed

In the drama on the grassy stage

Of white-clad gladiators of racket and ball

And we glimpse the unimagined

Life beyond.