Third Grade

By Jeff Crouch

dipping my cookie
in my milk
hoping the afternoon
brings grape juice
and the pretty teacher
for music

 

row your boat

 

a car spins out
and
hits a fire hydrant
water gushes a mile high
we rush
to the window
to look

 

are the cops coming

 

back to your seats

 

the only kid
in the third grade
with grey
hair
drinks
buttermilk

 

yuck!

 

for Open House,
we make ourselves as paper cutouts
I’m in my corduroys
and zip-up shirt
propped up in my seat

 

is it good enough to fool the public?

 

trompe l'oeil

 

I dream I’m naked

 

colored in crayon

 

before the end
of the school
year—
remember the grey-headed kid?—
his mother comes
to get his
things

 

please sit down—

 

the answer to question one is
“George Washington”
at recess, we play kickball
but not till then

 

“Do not get up to sharpen your pencil.”

 

the girls on second base sing,
“Hey Good Lookin,
what you got cookin”
I think they’re singing to me

 

I walk in on my parents
and stare
at their hairy midsections

 

Sunday, we go over
the story of Jonah
I think about the withered tree
it’s cancer

 

I study my spelling 

Published July 2007