The Jobless Graduate

Before the first cock crow
As night moves to the background
I greet the day
With a stretch of rickety young bones
And a mighty hungry yawn

I look around the old junk shed
As I listen to the angry protest
of my joints’ creak and pop
From my nightly crawl
Into the windowless shell
Of my bedroom; an old landrover
Half sucked into the earth

The cold air saturates my face
As I hit the road
While trying to ignore the angry gurgle
Of my hungry insides
I dare not remember
when I had my last meal
As that will only make matters
So much worse
I pay no heed
To the sole-less shoes on my feet
Or the incessant pinch
Of the gravel on my cracked heel

I walk as I always have,
Looking straight ahead
As my family album
Rushes through my head
I see myself as I struggled through school
My grumbling stomach always demanding food
In my minds eye little children
My brothers and sisters
Too ill to make the long walk to hospital
And father gone, done in by years of frustration
Now drowned in alcohol
Mother distraught,
Trapped, with nowhere to go.

I pat my jacket pocket
Feel the proof of my university degree,
And assorted certificates
Obtained from years of struggle
And borrowed money
I stride as I’ve done for four years
Eyes unseeing straight ahead
Narrow mouth determinedly set
And swallow the lump of hate
Rising in my throat

PoP 26 May 06