April Poem of the Month: Louise Nicholas

Triple Trounced by Louise Nicholas
 
She left school at fourteen but when our mother’s mind
wasn’t Webster’s Dictionary, or Miss Manner’s Book
of Common Courtesy, it was a Letraset jumble of letters
that spent part of each day falling in and out with each other:

  • three-letter words beginning with ‘a’,
    seven-letter words that housed a ‘z’,
    four-letter words with no need for an ‘e’.

On rainy days, the Scrabble board emerged
and we’d no sooner placed the three-letter
Nip-and-Fluff word we’d spent ten minutes excavating
from a dictionary already bloodied with our desperation,

  • than she would trounce it
    with a ‘j’ on a triple-letter
    or a ‘z’ on the double word.

When she reached the finishing line,
she’d look back at us – trailing our degrees
and advanced diplomas where she had none –
see that we were held to ransom

  • by four ‘a’s
    or a ‘v’
    or a ‘u’-less q

and not even try to stifle a smile.

Discover more from Friendly Street Poets

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading