fifth grade memory #2Â
a story in an auxiliary reader delighted me
so much our teacher asked me to read it
to the class I did so with enthusiasm it wasÂ
called hare and hounds the tricks of the haresÂ
to avoid capture were capricious and clever
for instance they scattered their paper-bit cluesÂ
on either side of a fence forcing hounds to
climb back and forth losing time while haresÂ
skipped merrily ahead: but well into the sagaÂ
miss hurst gently asked me to stop – the taleÂ
far longer than she’d thought did classmatesÂ
ever finish the story? I dunno – it was less a Â
humiliation more a realization about time paceÂ
taste, 20 years later I went back to that room
in search of that reader but it was gone…
2022 Jacqueline Jackson
This article appears in A new look for Ninth Street.
