Helen Harvey

 

Ionic Bonding

 
In the yard the Girls erupt.
 
From the science lab window
(the one that Greg Watson threw
his garbled Marvell at last year,
trying to fish out fat Mary)
there came a rally of words,
back-handed pleas, hard as tennis balls.
 
In the dim shine glass gleamed
Julie Matthews (destined for Cambridge)
and Doctor Rodson's smooth, milk fingertips
fumbled smooth, silk, protesting lips,
(A teacher!) and his eyes danced
like the flicker of forbidden
cigarettes, like Mary when we
nicked her new shoes. Like
rubidium igniting in water.
 
Thursday, Further Maths, I spoke to Julie. she
was a feather, skirting the wind of my curiosity.
I persisted. she split. It was cream.
Julie never got detention
save once. Rodson, a cane,
a fantasy realised among the test tubes
of a Bunsen burning laboratory,
Ooooh, Doctor Rodson!
 
She was naive. The drumming
of Rodson's heart was the backbeat
to her smile, and the flourish
of her hand in the air, ionic bonding
sir. She was having fun.
 
Until today. His hand in hers,
the air their aisle, the sun
their distant altar.
The tarmac is their marriage bed.
Their monument, a pave-stone,
gum dotted, the constellation Virgo.
 
Julie's eyes sag. stop. Sarah cries.
Ms Green cloaks Rodson's body up.
 
Julie is fluid, soaking in
the soup of Doctor Rodson's skin.
His skull is cracked, as glass that's held
too tight in the nervous tongs.
Still intact; his ribs.
 
Hushed - so spreads the word.
 
The doctor's heart is still alive in its cage,
but Julie's ok, whatever you heard.

 

 

Helen was a commended Foyle Young Poet in 2006 and 2007

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