Poetry

Les Murray: Two Poems

Boarding in Town for School The trick was to be asleep before the rail signalman whispered in with his latest girl off the midnight train otherwise the murmurings would go on and on whatever the pair did— At waking they’d be gone. Those days when boys called you names that rarely impressed the girls, who danced, calling you like Hinder and Posterio; those days could be got through, spit on prefects, eat downtown, talk cadet rifles, admire one or two. Staying with your best friend at his place. And his sister coming in in worn bathers, knocking bedframe with her…

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