Androphobia

It begins when the child finds deceit 
turns to truth if certain adults use it. 
His tongue still curls at the grit of wrong
the way it did at the crumbs stuck to sweets
from that man’s jacket pockets.

I don’t like that maths teacher.
He puts his hands down my pants.
He tries to make me forget
by giving me lollies.
I don’t want them, either.

His parents inform the school.
The teacher disappears,
no speech, no ceremony.
Yet the principal, for four more years,
singles out the child for humiliation:
says he is dishonest, filthy-minded, a failure.

Sometimes it almost seems correct. 
For the boy slips his parents the tale
that school is ‘much better now,’ 
although, like grime under fingernails,
lodged in his head is the man’s repeated act.

Each time he recalls it, a muddy tide
rises in his mind and he forgets 
so much else: capitals, verbs, his sums. 
It is so hard, to retain the value of things
when the worth of one is thought greater than another,
and yet that one, the one always called 
a brilliant educator,
seemed to believe mint or barley sugar 
would heal the way the axe of touch split the mind,
could nullify the fear of men.

emma neale