The Son is in Secondary School by Affran Sa’at

The Son is in Secondary School by Affran Sa’at
My badge has a Latin motto
Hope for the future
The future is hope
Or something

At times black crows try to interrupt
When we sing the National Anthem

It is difficult to maintain
The whiteness of my shoes
Especially on Wednesdays

I must admit there is something quite special
About the bare thighs of hardworking scouts

The Malay chauffeurs
Who wait for my schoolmates
Sit on the car park kerb
Telling jokes to one another

Seven to the power of five is unreasonable

On Chinese New Year
Mrs Lee dressed up
In a sarong kebaya
And sang Bengawan Solo

The capital of Singapore is Singapore

My best friend did a heroic thing once
Shaded all A’s
For his Chinese Language
Multiple-choice paper

In our annual yearbook
There is a photograph of me

Pushing a wheelchair and smiling

They caught me
At the exact moment

When my eyes were actually closed

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The poem is written in free verse, with little or no rhyming at all.
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1.
The poet's carefree (or simply not caring) attitude "...or something" is something one would expect from a normal schoolboy. This helps strengthen the image of the poet being not disabled, until the fact is revealed at the end of the poem.
2.
The poet's dirty shoes also help fortify the belief that he is a normal schoolboy as that would mean that he is very outgoing, playing sports in the muddy, dirty field.
3.
The poet reluctantly admits that he admires the thighs (or in this case, the muscles in the thigh) of the scouts, completely overlooking the fact that scouts are valued for their dilligence and kindness than their physical fitness.
4.
The poet seems envious of his richer classmates who even have chauffeurs to fetch them to and from school, something any other average student would do.
5.
The one liner "seven to the power of 5 is unreasonable" shows his dislike of mathematics, and the fact that it is only one line further exemplifies this. This is also another of the many factors that contribute towards our belief that he is a normal, healthy student.
6.
The poet shows that he is amused by using three whole lines building up to the "climax" of the stanza, describing the situation, then abruptly stating that the teacher sang a malay song on Chinese new year.
7.
This one liner shows that he is learning Geography, much like any other schoolboy, but also shows his nationality; we can infer that he is proud of his country.
8.
This stanza enforces the illusion that he is an ordinary schoolboy, that he does not like exams or tests for the thing itself, but rather for the amusement they bring when one of his classmates act up and do something amusing is desperation.
9.
This is the most important part of the poem, where the poet drops the bombshell that he is actually wheelchair bound. This fact gives the previous lines a higher level of meaning, so in order for you to fully appreciate the poem I strongly advise that you read it twice, or more.
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This concludes my analysis of the poem.















(By the way, I did not mean to insult disabled people; when I stated that non-disabled people were "normal, ordinary etc" I did not mean to insinuate that you were not...it's just that I couldn't think of other words to use. No offence intended :p)