Poem of the Week, by Kate Clanchy

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Timetable

- Kate Clanchy

We all remember school, of course:

the lino warming, shoe bag smell, expanse

of polished floor. It’s where we learned

to wait: hot cheeked in class, dreaming,

bored, for cheesy milk, for noisy now.

We learned to count, to rule off days,

and pattern time in coloured squares:

purple English, dark green Maths.

We hear the bells, sometimes,

for years, the squeal and crack

of chalk on black. We walk, don’t run,

in awkward pairs, hoping for the open door,

a foreign teacher, fire drill. And love

is long aertex summers, tennis sweat,

and somewhere, someone singing flat.

The art room, empty, full of light.

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​For more information on Kate Clanchy, please click here: http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poets/kate-clanchy​

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My blog: alisonmcghee.com/blog

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