I. Elementary School
You are my first memory of first grade:
Dark eyes, sandy hair tucked behind small clean ears.
You said hello. My jumper was the wrong plaid.
You wrote my name with a stick in the sand near the wall
And I wrote yours.
Sister Nicola was tall and slim and her closet
Was full of grown-up books. I might take this one
Home. She said, “Chapter Three
Is the most exciting.” Its title: “Escape.”
Valerie had ladylike white arms from reading Gone With the Wind
And covered her skin to ward off the New Jersey sun.
Heidi’s grandfather toasted cheese.
The Wilders cooked maple syrup.
St. Thérèse did little things perfectly.
Laurie carefully drew me a beautiful picture of me
As a saint surrounded by gentle Franciscan animals.
I tore it up.
Theresa showed me a picture her aunt had taken of the sky,
Or offered to, with Jesus in the clouds.
I sang “Moon River” to myself and the bus window.
Mrs. Wiston smiled.
She misspelled “independence” on the chalkboard.
Her hair was large and white like a Christmas angel’s.
My little sister’s scared eyes scanned the large yellow bus.
Sister Elise singing in the church:
Val-de-ri, val-de-ra, too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral.
When she caught boys being bad,
They signed the paddle.
She caught me whispering in a pew and so
I had to sing “Moon River” into the microphone.
Her black straight polyester dress rustled.
She formed a narrow light sturdy craft around me as we sang.
Mrs. Schmidt’s long face and curly dark hair and mascara eyes
Pleaded like a stuffed toy basset hound or a little girl.
Martha my secretsanta gave me a criss-crossed glass cross.
At Communion in the pew I sang loud and alone.
Valerie and I wrote class notes in Gregg shorthand
Learned from an old stenography book.
Sweet-voiced Sister Marcia let me join the guitar group
Meeting in the first grade room.
Ms. Blummer wore pants, drew a snowwoman.
Monica, short blocky squinty,
Wore her skirt three illegal inches above the knees.
She said, “Jew-see-a-penny?” and threw one into the trees for me.
Sharon smiled: shocking red hair, capacious whisks of hands
At the end of long arms. Skinny legs.
Together we wore the new plaid ugly warm school pants.
Sr. DeSecours taught art and sex education.
She said Do Not Use a Different Color for Each Letter.
That is Not Good Design.
Valerie and I wrote notes in runes
And practiced knightly conduct.
Poor Jeanette had a taffy-pulling party and we all came to her house.
Nobody wanted to talk, but I couldn’t tell her why.
Sleep-over at Laurie’s: we watched Night of the Living Dead.
We calmed Linda’s fears
By discussing her breasts.
Laurie said, Won’t you sing us to sleep?
In the morning we went to church.
Sr. Margaret showed students the confessional booth each in turn
(Except for me because I wouldn’t need it).
Mrs. Gannon’s play tryouts:
Girls could not try out for Captain Hook.
Tone-deaf Mrs. Mogensen taught us sight-reading and
“The Sound of Silence,” and read cackling to us a story
About children who ran away to New York.
Hair: short flat black.
Eyeglass frames: mother-of-pearl.
Francine had dimples.
Valerie grew her hair down her back and legs, soft silk,
Wore soft brown suede boots that tied up the leg,
A broad-brimmed suede hat.
We crossed suburban creeks in summer heat,
Lunching on bread, cheese, and watery sweet mulberries.
Fact: There is no such thing as an altar girl.
Cheri taught balance beam technique and had a white leotard
And white bandages around her knee. She moved like a precision
Sewing machine. Her voice rang in my ears like good china.
Miss Farrow had long brown hair. I gave her a Valentine.
Watched her get into her Chevy.
My friend Sister Mary Josef, S.N.D.,
Didn’t understand,
So I stopped writing.
Sister Ruane made us conjugate the verb “to be”
And taught us that when Jesus was crucified
The nails were driven through His wrists, not His palms.
I imagined myself chained in the Caucasus,
Tortured, adamantine, male.
II. High School
Valerie and I swam late at night and her breasts were like
Small mountains in the moonlight.
We crept out after midnight, after one or two or three,
To leave sealed notes in each other’s mailboxes
And walk through mulberry scented streets while the air was wet.
Her hair grew wondrously long.
We planned on the Air Force Academy.
Hours spent on yellow kitchen linoleum, back to panelled wall,
Gripping the receiver intently.
Silly Jan with the feathered hair laughed in homeroom
And doing lights and on stage
Until one day she cried.
Mary had eyes quick as a puppy’s to apologize.
She said she was not very bright.
Rosie’s face and arms were blooming healthy.
Her voice was high and thin, but carried well
On the hockey field.
Charity was brown and thin and tall and fragile
With a quiet giggle. We giggled about Ed.
Sandy was small and quiet and good at German.
We called Miss Fusick “Sarge” behind her back.
Mrs. Leuzinger the history teacher had been to China for the CIA.
She taught us “man” and “tall” and “sky” and “mountain.”
Chris was a skinny Bloody Mary, with a fine booming voice.
Diane was a broad-shouldered heavy Bloody Mary,
But her voice was much weaker.
Miz insisted on her title, laughing.
Eileen looked proud and good without glasses, in the gym shower,
Deep blonde hair, steady honest nose, straight neck.
Leslie played almost perfectly the part I had wanted so badly.
Frederika and Dorothy the dynamic duo
Played French horn and oboe.
Fred duelled. Dot was Mercutio.
Karen spent time breathing in the art room’s clay smell,
Concentrating on shape and light.
Sally O’Malley, the woman math teacher,
Had short blond hair, abruptly commanding.
Valerie was really too slight, too easily exhausted,
For the training, but she was the General
And I was just the Princess. She knotted her hair
And fingered the knot quietly.
Jeanne tore off her catcher’s mask
And moved like a lioness into the sun.