In the Lavatories

Where the sunlight fitted in the aisle,
made a clean triangle on the door
shut against that moment’s rush of automatic
flushing – and the one opposite ajar
on a curve of scrubbed wood, the two bolts
in the pedestal and the whitened patch
where our feet thudded, sometimes drew sparks –
Joanna pulled her knickers just far enough
to show the appendix scar. But it was small,
clean, the seven pricks either side
of the crease really only notional.
‘They didn’t get it out through that?’
Marion was the one who pushed her nose close
and sniffed and turned, though we were already
leading in reverse order to the yard.
‘Kiss chase?’ The boys standing earnestly
by the wall had gone last week to ask the Head
‘Well, if it’s alright, sir, the kiss ’n that?’
Remembering, and Mr Blundell’s ambivalent reply,
we looked at their stubbly heads,
the pocketed hands and grazed knees, taking our time.