The Leavers’ Celebration

(A Golden Shovel)
You are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of
Sharon Olds, ‘I Go Back to May 1937’

I hold onto the plastic chair as if it will stop me drifting from you. 

At the front of the hall, where you have stood so many times you are

undecided as a cloud. In ten minutes, you will pack up your Minecraft bag, going

somewhere I remember and do not know: to

the shop for sweets with your mates and then to your future. I suffer

watching you in your life-blood-colour jumper for the final time in

this hall where I have sat so many times clapping, all the ways

I have let you down and all the ways you

have forgiven me loud in my ears you have,

in your eleven years, been gracious and mature in ways I have not.

The spotlight lands on you singing a song I have never heard. 

I never knew you could sing so well. There is so much I won’t hear of.