Tables and Desks
Mother never needed a desk -
she had the kitchen table
and her sewing machine.
Father, knowing his colleagues
had desks - in ‘studies’! -
made do with his card table,
set up in the living room
as and when needed -
wobbly legs, worn green baize;
writing longhand reports
on teachers he’d inspected,
to be typed at the office.
Sister did her homework
on her bed or in it.
Or on the bus to school.
If I was to excel
I needed a desk.
One was got, tiny,
with shelves on the side
from desktop to floor,
my French dictionary
the biggest book we had.
There I Englished Caesar,
browsed The Golden Treasury.
Work, seldom excellent but
judged passable, was done.
On it was confected verse,
parodies and pastiche -
‘The Motor Mechanic
to his Love’ by Max.
Judy next door, my age, plump,
friendly, stole a look on that desk
at my secret watercolour art -
nude slim girls copied from underwear
ads in The Herald, without their bras.
She said she wouldn’t tell on me.
Verse? - no stopping me. When
I moved to a share house
with Phil and Denis
and I forget who,
my desk might have gone too,
but Mother put her foot down.
On a cheap typewriter
on a wide plank essays
were concocted on Shelley
and the like, overdue
but tolerated. Once hired
to teach, I’d hog big desks
at work and at home
almost invisible under
books and papers, others’
essays, work unfinished,
unfinishable in the clutter.
Pensioning me off was a mercy.
Now who needs a desk?
My old knees support this
laptop. Printer? - upstairs.
Dictionaries? - nowhere.
Shelley and the like - just
google them, or trust memory.
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