Comment on this article

Hoover Street School
     for Blanche Elizabeth Cole O'Connor
by Sharmagne Leland-St. John

She met me at the school yard gate
On that damp wintry day in January
Beyond the chain-link fence
On the slick sidewalk
Near downtown L.A.
In a drizzle, she waited,
For the bell to ring.

Caught up in a torrent of children
In this tidal wave of students
I was swept along
Toward her and home.

7 years old and in the first
Semester of second grade.
Missing front teeth, forming a window
From which my tongue could gaze out,
At the world
Unhampered by milk teeth

My report card clenched
In a wet, mitten-clad hand.
The blue-black ink
Bleeding down the page
Into blurred columns
Of As and Bs and
A smattering of Cs

As she tucked a muffler
Into the scratchy collar
Of my navy wool coat,
With the brass buttons,
A gift from my father, she asks
With a question mark in her voice
“2B or not 2B?”

For someone raised
On the wrong side of the tracks
In Pacific, Missouri
During the Roaring '20s
She had, through necessity,
Acquired
A fine and sophisticated,
Unparalleled sense of humour.

 


Return to:

[New] [Archives] [Join] [Contact Us] [Poetry in Motion] [Store] [Staff] [Guidelines]