Fresher

Luckily dad drives, because I cry
all the way there, and mum the whole way back.
Dad doesn’t cry because men didn’t then.
Cardiff tastes metallic as a cheaply silvered spoon
Brains brewery, rain and tangy steelworks
foreignness bitter on the edges of the tongue.

I unstreak my mascara just in time
to size up curious faces, sizing me
in my green trenchcoat, purple platform boots -
potential lovers, rivals, confidantes,
their afghan coats stinking of wet camel.
Dad lumbers under massive home-made stereo
plonks cases on the narrow convent bed
which turns out to be wide enough…

(The hall of residence’s list of rules
made to be snapped like autumn twigs,
my ground floor window later used
as all night thoroughfare for curfew breakers,
their mud-caked footprints camouflaged
by scratchy dung-brown bedspread;
my pristine passport photo on the office wall
destined to be ringed in black.)

I have blocked out the moment of goodbye
return alone to overheated solitary cell
last inmate scrubbed away with Ajax,
the walls – committee cream – still
pockmarked from their poster sellotape.
Some people slam their doors shut -
mine is wide. I’d hang a neon welcome sign
if it seemed cool, instead use music as a lure -
Van Morrison snakes down the corridor
reeling in life-long friends to share cheap cider
and a desperate I’m not frightened fag.