English (Room 202) & 3 other points of view

1
There are three fir trees en face,
stroking the soft air.
                    The sky surprises.
The toilets are located. The paper is thick
& white & longer than any so far.
                    On the dark
stairs at the end of the lino the departments
run over: Latin into Maori into History
into Linguistics.
          It is vulgar to be surprised,
angling your knees in a tight skirt under a Staff
Club picnic table.
               'I'd never have an affair,'
says josh, 'with any woman over 45. By the time
you got her the way you wanted her,
she'd up & die.'

2
'My womb is big enough for two,' says Ruth.
'A double ensuite.'
               If she'd had the baby,
she'd've lost the student allowance.
If she'd stayed with the father, how could
he'd've supported them & through her studies
on 50 bucks a week?

– 84 –

                    She'd gone to Lyndhurst
on her own, through the placards of the SPUC
men & women.
               'They tell you all lies, you know,'
she says. 'They are infected by religion.'

3
Anastasia is abrupt & breathless.
She has to fly.
I have disappointed her in a huge way.
Like Georges Sand, she writes & writes
& writes all night.
She falls in love with
beautiful, helpless, younger men in need
of mothering. They ring each other up
from island to island.
                    It's quite hysterical!
She pushes the top knot of her straw hair
up into a wave & pulls it down again. Drags
thick black lines through computer pages in
a rage.
She wants to rewrite my whole life.