Thirteen

I was practising being a saint.
My brown lace-ups were clamped
to the dusty floor, and I was in them.
The mirror, an oval drop
of flat untrembling water, showed
a pale girl inside a yellow raincoat.
I hated it. "This one,' I said.
My mother passed the silky beige one,
the dearer one, back to the woman,
and softly they agreed: "Too young
to know its value.'
"Some of us even
wear yellow raincoats to school!'
The nun stood on a bench —
wasp-waisted, her cheeks covered
with tributaries of red lightning.
Her eyes glittered as two hundred girls
marched with military precision
round the playground. In tune
with a deeper instinct, I dragged
my feet into the asphalt,
waiting to be detected, punished…
She was the one who ground me down
the way she ground her yellow teeth,
and almost triumphed —
until the day when, kindled with rage,
she struck me across the arm:
"Get out, then!' And I had won,
my eyes drops of flat untrembling water,
giving her back her hatred,
polishing it with the fresh shine of youth.