COVERT OPERATIONS

COVERT OPERATIONS

It was imperative I attended French in short trousers
for, although I could order poached monkey brains
fluently in any one of eight different languages,
I had duped Miss Mangeot into thinking I was quiet,
Perhaps a little shy, an average pupil.
Not the type to have sworn mon amour to her sister
While on Her Majesty's Secret Service, Zurich.
After all I had a code name to live up to:
Bone idle, bestowed upon me by my mother
Who had successfully worked the Tupperware circuit
Incognito between Burnham-on-Sea and Prague since 1972.

I was proud to have read Shakespeare aloud
in my highly polished monotone voice;
stumbling over O'er and reconnoitre.
It is true I very nearly let my cover slip:
Once in English my favourite words were
dapper, suave, dashing, chic.
The whole class scowled like punks.

I was vilified until I learned to spit and to burp on request,
to hate people who spoke posh.
It was the hardest case to crack.
For five years I slept with my finger on the trigger
under a seman stained pillow case,
dreaming of the last failed exam when a man
wearing a shirt with pink collars the size of
pterodactyl wings, would march me blindfolded
from the sports hall to a bazaar in Marrakech.
The butt of his revolver digging like the knuckle of a bully
While I set the timer on my exploding pen.

When I was knocked down I dusted myself off.
Never once put a gun to Mr Legg's cruel football head.
Listened out for the familiar ting
Of martini glasses, sweet cherry on a cocktail stick:
Kept me going from June to September
When they sent me under cover as a decorator.