The Secret Life of Teachers

lunch-time
school bustle left behind
friends diet over meals
wonder how much damage
crumbs will do
and curse and swear about
whoever is not there

Margaret fidgets on her chair
the welts don’t show
below her hemline
but sitting is a pain
she tries to rest between the stripes
of red raised flesh
but they insist
and press their memory on her
flushing as talk turns to (she thinks of ) handcuffs
and being stretched across the bed

Some are married
some will marry
some act desperate
some are not
some think about
steamy stormy night-club-sex
others about a weekend to the Lakes
all are pointed at the last bell
of Friday

Jean, address-book mind
open at a long fat
married memory
wonders if she should call
him for a weekend tryst
but instead for now
sits sipping, purse-lipped,
eyes on a nipple raising
moment in the past

they talk of weekenders
house warming and sleep-overs
hen-nights and parties
laugh and shriek

one man on his own
resting up against a wall
flicks a  paper ball
at a laughing cleavage
and dreams of
student teachers and stock room sex
sucking games
and heads banging
behind the door
but knows he will go home
to his sex free zone

I was here too I saw this
all the razzmatazz of life
around a rattan table
in a lunch break
and this is
the secret life
of teachers

Jim Bennett

If you've any comments on this poem, Jim Bennett would be pleased to hear from you.