Spring Glen Grammar School

  Sitting in the back seat

of a nineteen thirty-five Packard

  with running boards, I held

my great-uncle Luther’s blotchy hand.

  He was nine for Appomattox

and remembered the soldier

  boys coming home from the war.

When I pressed the skin of his hand

  between thumb and forefinger,

the flesh turned white as Wonder Bread.

  It remained indented

for a few seconds and then rose up,

  turning pink, flush to the surface

of his veined hairless mottled

  hand. Then I pressed it again.

Luther would stay old forever.

  I would remain six, just

beginning first grade, learning to read.

 

  For weeks we learned

the alphabet—practicing it, reciting

  in unison singsong,

printing letters in block capitals

  on paper with wide blue

lines, responding out loud to flash cards.

  Then she said: “Tomorrow

you’ll learn to read.”

 

              Miss Stephanie Ford

  wrote on the blackboard

in large square letters: T H A T. “That,”

  she said, gesticulating

with her wooden pointer, “is ‘that.’”

 

  Each year began

in September with the new room and a new

  teacher: I started with

Stephanie Ford, then Miss Flint, Miss Gold,

  Miss Sudel whom I loved,

Miss Stroker, Miss Fehm, Miss Pikosky . . .

  I was announcer

at assemblies. I was elected class

  president not because

I was popular but because I

  was polite to grown-ups, spoke

distinctly, held my hands straight down

  at my sides, and kept

my shirt tucked in: I was presidential.

 

  Eight years in this

rectangular brick of the nineteen thirties:

  If I survive to be eighty,

this box will contain the tithe

  of a long life.

In the glass case, terra is miniature:

  tiny snails and mosses,

wooden houses with sidewalks, small trees,

  and Spring Glen Grammar School.

See, pupils gather around a boy

  in black knickers

who shoots an agate, kneeling in the circle.