How beneath two rutted pillars the stone steps sagged,
pillars that stood wearily - parental monoliths guarding doors
whose studded wood made an inhospitable meal of welcome,
floors flagged with a strange hush or guilt that bleached the eyes,
lucky to be here

Her eleven-year-old body is swaying awkwardly in the penumbra,
between the grumbling gravel of the driveway under tyres
and the dark hall with its mopped mosaic and smell of wood polish,
then to her attentive Dear Mum who is halfway there
yet halfway angled back towards the gate,

let go – she needs to leave now.

They stand between the light of the late summer light
and the dark frame of the pillars, saying goodbye yet saying nothing,
voices drowning in the come and go of cars;

So the trunks are being busily lumped out of boots and trolleyed away -
a portion of some personal comfort carted off down the corridors -
and it is time to face the ghastly stairs, the laundry collection point
on the landing and then name on the door and the iron beds lined up in the dorm,

and once over the threshold the little body knows its course,
pitching itself to that ring of chatter that can get you anywhere,
and find you a job and a Mr right and all the rest of it thank-you,
as the rust-red vessel containing her mother turns its wheels and disappears,

do not cry now

The corridors and dining rooms mutate to a kind of home,
uniforms become bearable, friends re-emerge as if from mist
and acts of rebellion form covert in the underbelly - whilst
the most weighted four words a child will ever say are muted to silence,
I want my mother