My First
Three six nine
wrote the names of the boys we liked
goose drank wine
on our bare legs. Lee was the first at everything,
daring enough to lift my skirt to find his name
monkey chewed tobacco
on my knee. Cool girls changed the names every other
week, but his was the only name I wrote on my skin.
on the street car line.
He was the first to hold my hand, the first
to kiss me at the show, Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Line broke
He could talk me into anything -- I would have followed
him anywhere but my parents wouldn’t let me go
monkey got choked
when he asked me to go rafting with his brothers.
Spring run-off, they said. Submerged logs, driftwood snags-
and they all went to heaven in a little row boat.
too easy to drown this time of year.
(photo by W. O'Keefe)
How interesting. Telling a story in poetry and intertwining it with an old hand clapping rhyme.
ReplyDeleteI love it.
The hand-clapping rhyme sounds like what we used to have as jump rope rhymes. It is perfect, woven into the poem, and I want to be in sixth grade again with a name written above my knee. I want to write a name there all these years later, to see just how strong the conjure magic might be. I'll be careful what I ask for.
ReplyDeleteIn about fourth or fifth grade, I wrote the name of a boy I liked on the bottom of my shoe and showed him. Trouble is, it said "I hate Michael."
ReplyDeleteI love this poem--just wonderful!
ReplyDeletethanks all!
ReplyDeletehand-clapping games was so much fun and the names written above the knees were another sort of fun. yes, marylinn, we learn to be careful for what we ask for. i didn't realize how fast life got serious back then. annie, you've captured just what it was like to be 11 and 12. at least back then, eh?!