Mrs. Cole

brought us empty cigar boxes for each student

that she brought from home.

We kept our large flat pencils with small teeth marks,

and color crayons smelling of Crayola’s

inside our personal boxes with our names on top.

Proudly  we put these  inside our metal and wooden topped desks

when asked, sometimes told.

The rain had stopped right before

we went out for recess

with the wet blacktop shining.

The air was fresh,

the sky reflected in the puddles

that we splashed with our shoes.

Brian and some other boys

threw the wriggling worms at the girls

squealing and running away.

Recess was over much too quickly

and we returned to writing the alphabet

on lined paper with the dotted middle,

and sounding out our “oh”, “ah”, “eh” vowels

from flashcards she held in front of the class.

Drilling small tongues to make sounds into our heads

repeating them until our minds were keen

to learn our words, as rote in reading lessons out loud

that we would speak and write

for all our days to come.