From the Top Shelf - The Wait

Our good friend Anon, 21st Century has sent me another of his poems to share with you, and this one is quite unique in its structure and rhyming technique. I hope you enjoy it.

The Wait

Rebecca sat nervously in the hall
Outside the Head’s office. A high-pitched squall
Of girlish distress reached her through the door
And she raised her teary gaze from the floor
For an instant. She knew too well the cause,
Which, after a tense, agonising pause,
Was repeated: the sudden whizz and whump
Of a long, springy cane against the plump
And delicate curves of Amanda’s rump.
Another yelp that tailed off in a sob…
Rebecca felt a sympathetic throb
In her tender flesh where it pressed the chair.
Had Higgins, she wondered, ordered a bare-
Cheeked target? Well, it didn’t make much odds:
Whichever he took of his wicked rods
(He’d quite an array), it would truly sear
His wrath across a wayward lass’s rear,
And knickers couldn’t dim those lines of flame
(Though they’d somewhat lessen the sense of shame).
Again the thin lawgiver clearly spoke –
That awful crack resounding through the oak –
And again the miscreant testified
How deeply sorry it made her backside.

But now that the sentence was halfway served,
Rebecca’s dreadful meditations swerved
Away from the pangs of her anguished friend
And were centred more on her own tail-end.
For once the last of the six was delivered,
It was her turn…  Yes, she palpably shivered.
It wouldn’t be long till her pal was sent
Off weeping, and she in her place was bent
Across the desk, while the Head raised her skirt
And explained how much her thrashing would hurt
And how he felt it was thoroughly earned.
So strokes four and five she scarcely discerned
(Unlike Amanda, who well knew she got ’em!)
As thrills of fear ran prickling through her bottom.

Too soon came the sixth, and the post-whack wail,
And after a minute, tearful and pale,
There stood Amanda, too shaken to speak,
A hand firmly clutched to each scorching cheek,
And there stood the Head, that horrid thing flexed
In his grasp, quietly commanding, “Next.”
Rebecca was moving as in a dream,
Limbs weak as jelly and chilled as ice-cream,
Following orders and playing her part
While the hot tears started to well and smart
As she laid her face on the polished wood
And promised herself she’d always be good
In future, and the cool air touched her bum
(The last of cool for a long time to come),
And a tap of the cane foretold the fate
That would end her endless and too-brief wait.