1. ‘Later, dear . . .’
‘Dodo’ had no choice in the pills prescribed
For her nerves, they were Dad’s – but not her new name,
‘Withdrawn’. Aloofly sulking with Triceratops,
She made her terms with rejection, and defensiveness
Became her shield. Her father provided her
With a soberly unnurturing model to emulate,
Which her girlfriends magnified as ‘playing hard to get’ –
The calm unresponsiveness to signals of affection
By which she re-enacted her inevitable rebuff.
2. ‘Greater, dear...’
It was her parents’ perfectionism, not swotting,
That soaked the promising academic air
With the sense that she could not win. Success
Offered no solace, failure no light
On ways of improvement. Where had she mislaid
Her competence that she never was praised, never
Could do well enough, but when she ‘failed’
She was made to feel helpless? Demoralized and confused,
She grew to harbour a dislike of studying
Which had earned so little intelligent approval,
And defiantly sought from her peers age-appropriate
Life-skills, not found in her schoolbag. To one
Who was not sporting, or deft-fingered, friendship was academic
Or green-eyed, and no hero figures could satisfy -
So she hardly knew who she was. But ‘they’ knew.