Class Rules

 By Kate O’Neil

In my Australian school

in the days of Empire,

we dipped our nibbed pens

in ink that was royal blue,

and, by decree,

in ink of

no other colour.

Not the blue of the sea

which girt us

nor of the arching sky

in our land of the free.

Australians were loyal

and True Blue

was royal.

Britannia ruled the waves

and Britannia ruled

the ink.

Margins however,

were to be ruled

(exactly one inch,

giving no quarter)

in erasable pencil.