When Two Percent Were Students

 Gorgeous expansion of life

all day at the university—

then home to be late for tea,

an impractical, unwanted boarder.

When rush hours were so tough

a heart attack might get stepped over 

you pounded the long footpaths, 

partings in the houses’ iron hair;

hosts of depression and wartime 

hated their failure, which was you. 

Widows with no facelift of joy 

ironed you. Shamed by bookishness

You puzzled their downcast sons

who thought you might be a poofter. 

Then you’d hitch home to run wild 

again where cows made vaccines

and ancient cows had discovered aspirin, 

there where your father and you

still wore pink from the housework 

you taught each other years before

then the card-shuffling steam train 

would dream you back to lectures

or to sleep in your brothel creepers 

under a Film Soc projector.