The Poetry Society

You spent your time

picking up rubbish, sticking up

lefts and rights

to help guide visitors around the site;

the disposing of old chocolate-bar wrappers

and the closing of classroom doors.

Down on your knees, peeling back the carpets

and sweeping the classroom floors.

Even post-retirement,

ignoring scarfed children, who laughed at you when

you stressed the purging and urging of coke cans,

in the dustbins, never in the dustbins,

forever dissatisfied with the state of things.

Unpacking stocks from the stationery-vans

and stacking chair-flocks by the smoke-stained

caretakers-corridor, where each day more and more

lost-property-children complained

about their PE kit, in the changing rooms,

never in the changing rooms.

Even after you passed away,

one could say your legacy stays

when, even in the winter days,

the cleaners were cleaning

and the children had gone home

and you were out on your after-school-patrol

and the rumble of litter couldn't even embitter

your forever-a-caretaker soul.