A ROLL-CALL OF GREENWAYS STAFF

           Bunned Broadbent, timorous and proper,

           carrying your autumn tweeds

           through the light

           between the shrunk desks of Form One.

           Small bodies amputated from home

           seek the quiet weight of your young hands.

              Fold your hands.

           Headmaster Ince (‘just call me Funff'),

           you smile beneath your neat toothbrush,

           face round as a Thomist disputation,

           caning-arm strong as bamboo.

           You give me three of the best

           for three out of ten in a Latin test.

              Fold your arms.

           And, octogenarian Westmacott,

           who teach other boys Latin,

           you hide moulting wings under the overcoat

           you wear even in summertime.

           You will be long picked clean,

           bone-bundle requiring no overcoat.

              Fold your wings.

           Other characters from Greenways' stage,

           that PREP SCHOOL FOR BOYS on the A36:

           Oldham, whose hand goes up our shorts

           in Boy Scout games;

           Fritz Buchdahl, who chalks our bare skin

           to illustrate les parties du corps,

              cross your fingers;

           Hathaway, the headmaster parents mistake

           for the gardener - like Christ after His rising -,

           you let the school go into liquidation.

           Yes, the place has its odd-balls,

           yet, when Hathaway rises casually at lunch

           to say the pupils are to be sent home,

              some of them weep.