This is how the story goes
two students in the bush behind a school during school hours
Form 3 girl with Form 5 boy
Sharp words whistling:
“She a wicked little girl”
“What nastiness is this?”
“How she thirsty so?”
Hiss, spit, fire words
and stares
as she leaves the school ground
hands over face
shame scurrying through gate.
By the time she reach town
story spread
like the steady slap of slippers
hitting she skin the night before.
Men and women peeping from shops
to get a better look at ‘the nasty child.’
More spit fire words and stares;
the loudest
her own
roaring
raging undercurrents of words
she believes
And the boy,
the 16 or 17 year old boy/youth man
he hop the fence with those athlete legs
he pop over fence like he practicing
for 2019 intercol heats.
Legs that run, jump, heave fence after fence after fence.
Words follow him
like a football sailing through air
kicked safe from goal post to goal post,
“What boy you cant wait till school done?”
“What kinda stupidness you get yourself in?”
“How you careless so?”
People laughing
but not the hiss spit fire laugh the girl gets
this is cliché laugh,
boys will be boys laugh,
this the laugh of mothers telling
mothers to keep their fowls in
cause their cocks let loose at school too.
by maureen st.clair