Results

The school holidays in the final furlong and the next new phase and term in clear sight. This is when the thousands receive their plain envelopes informing them whether they have made the grade, precisely. And we look on, remembering or not remembering a future built on hopes and inadequacy, not knowing what is right about our work and knowledge, and what is wrong, aware too of us in them and how things fade. We kiss them out the door and wait until they ring

with hard facts that bring five years to a close. Then look in the bedroom where all the revision was done, revising too, seeing all those years of growing height as bedtime story voices rose and fell, a childhood came and went by division of days and night, multiples of love and tears;

learning again by heart how what’s past continues while outcomes slip away into receding views.