Well, here is a puzzle I can’t seem to fix.
Am I in year seven? Or still a year six?
Primary’s over – it’s finished, all done.
There’s no doubt about it; the summer’s begun.
I’ve taken my books home,
I’ve emptied my tray.
No need to rehearse
for the end-of-school play.
The hooks are all empty.
My polo shirt’s signed.
I’ve sat all my SATs,
left my first school behind.
So, secondary’s coming – a total clean slate –
but that’s in September, all summer to wait.
I need a new backpack,
I’ll wear a new tie.
The teachers don’t know me
and… neither do I.
Just who will I be
when I enter this school?
A miniscule fish
in a gigantic pool.
Yes, I am a puzzle I can’t seem to fix.
Not quite in year seven, no longer year six.
Sarah Ziman is a poet from Wales who likes cats, crisps, cake, reading and rhyme. She dislikes writing about herself. She won the YorkMix Poems for Children Prize 2021, and enjoys annoying her own children by forcing them on nature walks or ‘dragging them into antique shops’. You can look out for some of her other poems in The Caterpillar magazine, online at The Dirigible Balloon, and in anthologies for children.