“After School”
by W.S. Merwin
For a long time I wanted
to get out of that school
where I had been sent
for the best
I thought of climbing
down the vine
outside the window
at night
after the watchman
had turned the corner
to the boiler room
in the sweet autumn dark
I wanted to slip
through the still dining hall
and down the cellar stairs
in the girls’ wing
where I had set the waltzing
in the first book
of War and Peace
I would pass unseen in that crowd
into the cellar
and the secret door to the steam pipes
and under the street
to the swimming pool
I would have persuaded
a girl I liked
to meet me there
and we would swim whispering
because of the echoes
while the light from the street
shone through its frosted windows
like the light of the moon
all down the hot room
where the sound of the water
made the heart beat loud
to think of it
but I never
got away then
and when I think now
of following that tunnel
there is a black wolf
tied there waiting
a thin bitch
who snaps at my right hand
but I untie her
and we find our way
out of there as one
and down the street
hungry
nobody in sight at that hour
everything closed
behind us
Source: The Rain in the Trees (Alfred A. Knopf, 1988)
