October, 1954

Beth Spencer

School is a long tunnel.
My teacher cries in the cloakroom,
tremulous body, staccato breath.
Her sobs, like a dark drumming,
waver in the winter coats
where she hides her face
and smells the children’s puzzlement.
Collapsing like a firework
Sister Mary Edmunds cannot escape
St. Patrick’s School despite her eighty years,
her shortened passage.
There are long days here for her
an infinite “God Damn It!”
The book of sanity, of health
is slammed and broken.
Nothing here will be forgotten.
Fifty-two fourth graders freeze
turn owl eyes toward
Sister Mary Edmund’s
shattered mind.