This is Oregonian of Slytherin House writing for the We Are Poets Challenge.
The Reinvented Self
I come from an attached row house on a shabby street
in a grimy, semi-industrial part of the city
with side streets still damaged by the Second World War
pockmarked from neglect.
I come from a little family -- a father who survived the war,
a mother in a cotton print dress, always working,
a sister too old to want to play with me in the streets.
I come from a wish, a hope for a better, more genteel life.
We all held hands and made the leap
from one end of the working class to the other,
to a sturdy brick house on a tidy, tree-lined street
with well-groomed gardens.
I come from summer days with my father,
learning to grow a lawn, create a bed of flowers
that nod and bloom in vivid colors underneath our windows,
summer evening strolls, all of us together,
eyeing the neighbors' gardens -- does ours measure up?
I come from a sedate primary school
and neatly dressed schoolfellows who have never learned to play in the streets,
who do not know the games I am trying to forget,
who speak in cultured accents I am trying to learn.
I come from the hours in the sitting room,
perched on the smooth fabric of the sofa,
practicing with my mother
the right answers to the questions they will ask,
memorized phrases, how to shake hands.
I come from a book-lined office at Smeltings School,
dressed in my Sunday clothes, shoes shined, tie knotted precisely by my father,
fingers twisting, trying not to squirm,
trying not to disappoint my Mum and Dad.
Will they like my answers? Will I get in?
I come, not from the University, but the City College of Commerce,
from the classrooms that teach me to work at a desk,
not with my hands like my father,
from the teachers in their business suits, whom I watch carefully
and try to imitate. If I can be like them,
I will be safe, will be successful.
I come from a narrow office at Grunnings, with a little window
that looks out on a brick wall.
But there is a bigger office with a better view.
I can bide my time.
I come from a dream of the pretty blonde secretary
and a neat home on a respectable street,
bright flowers and a weed-free lawn,
and a little son named after his grandfather,
and respectable neighbors who will not see through the years
back to where I came from.