9 January 2014

[takepart]

Education

My first-grade teacher

assigned us scarred desks,

all for the right handed,

each of us stem to stern

in a dry sea, meandering aisles

for breathing space.

Our fingers scoured inkwells

dark with blistered spills,

our ballpoints drilled
this year's dedications.

Beneath hinged lids

lay shallow drawers, slots

where our ever-breaking

yellow pencils end to ended.

I wore long curls, pulled

often by two-bit show-off
scamps until I raised

my pencil & stabbed

a boy, the hair at the back

of his head oozing red —

the nurse was called,

her braid crown to waist,

the boy’s pale face, plaid shirt,

his mute cooperation.