Geraldine Connolly - Why I was sent to Boarding School

to lengthen my hemlines and straighten <br />my morals <br /> <br />because I was difficult <br /> <br />because my parents were tired <br /> <br />to lock me in chastity's cupboard <br /> <br />to Latinize me, teach me manners, <br />give me a good solid dose of fear <br /> <br />to place over my fact the mask <br />of stoic cheerfulness <br /> <br />to take away my swagger <br />tame my wild hair and rebellious tongue <br /> <br />because that's where the doctors <br />sent their daughters <br /> <br />because the nuns would know what to do <br />with a girl like me <br />because they would do their best <br />to pour me into the mold <br />with china limbs and lace collars <br />and because they had their fingers crossed <br />that I would come out nice <br />like a floral centerpiece you could <br />put right into the center <br />of your dinner party, gleaming <br /> <br />as heads of cut flowers <br />bobbed there, grateful, arranged, <br />blinking and nodding with grace <br />saying yes, yes, turn me <br />and they would turn me, <br />from what I was <br />into what they wanted <br /> <br />not the wolf girl <br />not soaring beast with smoking hair <br />but a tame Hereford <br />amiable, smooth child they could love <br />with no thoughts that were devil-born <br />a flat good prize of a girl <br /> <br />and there where I looked <br />in a morning mirror <br />I would encounter myself <br />calm, bovine, accepting <br /> <br />beloved of Mother Superior <br />cherished of God the Father.<br /><br />Geraldine Connolly<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem..../why-i-was-sent-to-b