STRANGERS ON A TRAM
I was on a tram going home form school
when who should get on it but my mother,
wearing the brown tweed costume Mrs Dowle
passed on to her before we left England.
This wouldn’t have been so bad except that
she’d let the hem down because Mrs D.
had said skirts were going to be longer.
Well, if so New Zealand had not yet heard.
Mothers were supposed to be stout, with grey hair,
and not go around predicting the New Look.
There were some girls on the tram I sort of knew.
I pretended this woman was a stranger.
Amazingly, she pretended the same
(apart from giving me a furtive wink).
How dare she have the cheek to understand me!
It was hard to work out what to resent.