Bonsai

It’s wrong, you’ll say, to speak ill of the dead and that I must dispute.
Was Lizzie Borden canonised in death? More to the point, were you?
Miss D…..a blast malignant touched a tender thrusting sprout.
Stunting the tree that might have been to life-long bonsai bondage.
Does a blighted forest mark your wake? Forty years of pliant youth
Suffered your despotic rule and feared your lavish retribution.
Some, I’m sure, still wonder as I did, “Just what is wrong with me?”

At four, I was as bright and confident as any child could hope to be,
Trusted a mile to shops on errands, asking for the manager,
Even then steeped in and permeated with the Christian ethic.
From early grounding in the Golden Rule and Ten Commandments,
Believing things must go well if my conduct was exemplary.
Naive perhaps but workable until knee-deep in never ending trouble
A child, distraught, bewildered, reasoned, ‘There’s some fault in me.’

All-powerful your sway over that infant room and reason had no place.
Caprice chose an Elect for whom no wrong could ever be admitted.
Manipulators, skilled at sucking-up to you and dobbing in their peers.
I was with the never-rights, blame-shoulderers, convenient strap fodder,
Punished at the word of the Elect or at your whim if no-one volunteered.
Six-of-the-best the minimum, denials, though true, brought several more
And withering contempt at my ’transparent lies.’ I was ‘disgusting.’

Did forty years of teaching never spark in you some empathy?
Could you not understand the trauma of new-entrants starting school?
How could you think the Belsen style that you applied appropriate?
“I can see the big strap Janet. Can you see the great big strap?
“Yes John, I can hear it singing. Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!”
“Teacher loves her big strap, Janet, loves excuse to use her strap.”
“Head down John, don’t catch her eye or your turn will be next.”

One year of fear, confusion, when prior training played me false,
When white was black, bad good, and honesty sure road to punishment.
One year to leave my self-esteem in tatters for the fifty subsequent,
Shunning socials, parties, dances. Sure that no girl would dance with me.
Seeing in other’s confidence a proof that they were right and I mistaken.
Accepting every blame, no matter how unfair, as being rightly mine.
Miss D…….the question that I should have asked is,
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH YOU?