Being prepared

They were everywhere
the guardians of our moral welfare:
scout leaders, teachers, coaches.
Vigorous ladies who ran jumble sales
and cake stalls.
The parents of other children.
Shop-keepers, bus conductors,
earnest young men in dog collars.
They herded us into the upper rooms
of Elizabethan manor houses,
into damp huts abandoned after the war,
or bright light-filled church halls
purpose built with waxed floors
on which we slid in stocking feet.
They taught us a soldierly discipline,
the importance of telling the truth
of keeping our hands to ourselves.
This was a nearly seamless supervision.
We were forced to creep out at night,
dashing for the fence in the intervals
between the sweep of searchlights,
to commit our sins: stealing,
masturbation, bad language.
In daylight hours we polished our lies
until we could see our faces in them.

				Clapham, 1991

	John Rule, 2004
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