Blazer

At all times, you will have on your hat, your gloves, your blazer.

- Mrs Burke, Deputy Head, Ogilvie High School, on the morning of Black Tuesday,

7 February 1967

girls scatter from the hall beetles smoked from their nest
the sun is a black seed in a blood orange the male teachers gone
the women shooing us out as I reach the path the fringes of the
oval combust and all the safety buckles of the world burn off me
I am walking in my hat my gloves my blazer through the hearth
of my own fear, my breath jagged with woodsmoke and sweat my
small arm pinioned under a bag of first-day books
on creek road one whole verge is on fire, fire that dad sets
in the hearth of the living room or for cracker night bonfire
marshmallows and singing how can the sky the road be fire
the air this wind catches me like a demon’s hand I am running but
gaining no ground his black fingers clasping around my legs
my bag dragging like iron jaws on the bone-bright wing of an angel
up the road I see my yellow house like a vision
please I have to get home my cry sucked into cinders
I am Gretel in the oven retching scratching the glass
my house his hands my matchstick legs my hat my gloves my blazer