In a one-room schoolhouse
a cast iron pot belly stove
burned through
great stacks of wood
and sometimes mice
whose necks had snapped
in shiny steel traps.
We all cheered and clapped
when our hero
dangled them by their tails
and flung their tiny corpses
into the fire.
He was a lanky man
with horn-rimmed glasses
and graying hair, who seemed
only a little older than we.
I’d clap when he told us stories
from his youth and tall tales
of derring-do that stirred my blood
and made my eyes shine.
I clapped again when his voice rose
to many crescendos
and crackled with emotion
as he recited the first poem I’d ever heard:
“I must go down to the seas again,
to the vagrant gypsy life.…”
But behind him,
on a hook on the wall,
hung twelve inches of standard issue
pink rubber toughness.
Just in case.
And on that day
two ragged lines
of indifferent students,
girls on the left,
boys on the right,
inched forward.
A rush of air, then whack!
Once on each quivering hand.
Then the blubbering began.
I never clapped again.
