Shorthand
The notebook fell out of the top draw of a chest cracked during last decade’s move.
I expected the leather to flop to the floorboards softly, but gravity was strong that day
and it hit hard with a thwack. Despite its age, it stayed bound together.
Contained in the creamed pages were records of cracks that had shattered whole buildings.
A school – if you could call it so when it never had enough exercise books
for children to learn their right-to-left lettering.
A lack of pages didn’t matter when the roof came off.
I turned over a rumpled corner and in a faded photograph
scared eyes confronted me from a bed,
where he lay desperate because he lacked the armour-vest that my pen allowed me to wear
with the scrub-green helmet I’d sometimes wished covered my eyes
so that I needn’t have seen the playground smothered in rubble and the light dust
that was still engrained in the paper, along with the scratched phonetics of his name.
and it hit hard with a thwack. Despite its age, it stayed bound together.
Contained in the creamed pages were records of cracks that had shattered whole buildings.
A school – if you could call it so when it never had enough exercise books
for children to learn their right-to-left lettering.
A lack of pages didn’t matter when the roof came off.
I turned over a rumpled corner and in a faded photograph
scared eyes confronted me from a bed,
where he lay desperate because he lacked the armour-vest that my pen allowed me to wear
with the scrub-green helmet I’d sometimes wished covered my eyes
so that I needn’t have seen the playground smothered in rubble and the light dust
that was still engrained in the paper, along with the scratched phonetics of his name.
Lucy Webster 