Kept In

Kept In

On his last day at the school he is kept in:
all that day clouded by the dread
of the afternoon. The last bell rings,
his mates gather a few important things
to take away forever and are gone.

He sits in the empty room, listening
to their voices fade in the golden air,
the childhood chants of freedom ebbing
along the hot roads, the cicadas whirring
in the playground trees. The minutes crawl
on the corridor clock, while he sits chained
to his scarred desk by duty and by fear -
though the tyrant whose will binds him
he may never see again - and these bonds
are no less strong for their invisibility.

Until at last a teacher wanders by,
masks his surprise to see the thin pale face
and dismisses him: slumped and beaten,
that joyous summer blighted in the bud,
he trudges home. In the noisy staffroom
over Christmas drinks, the old hands smirk
at his obedience to an empty threat:
though one, remembering when his young life
was hostage to the whim of hollow men,
walks out abruptly, too angry to speak.