Third Grade

A downpour pounded the asphalt as I walked home
among legions of tiny ballerinas in a brief choreography.
Soon, I would be dry, sipping cocoa. I’d belong somewhere again.

I often sat cross-legged on the porch with books, listening to distant
laughter from above. Elm trees were ripe with other children, 
all with upper-arm strength and a bold insistence to claim the sky.

Afraid to climb, I was certain I’d be unable to make my way
back to earth. I learned to ride a bicycle, pedaling hard down 
our hill, then I’d lean into the wind, free yet still mostly alone.

My Brownie leader’s daughter formed her tight clique. I waited
for the day we’d fly up, when I’d accrue more merit badges
than friends, when I could abandon the shame of corrective shoes.

Mrs. Schneider taught the class the times tables and cursive.
For a quarter, we could purchase a green plastic ballpoint 
resembling a fountain pen, leaving pencils and erasers behind.

My fingers wrapped the pen and letters formed, fluid and full
of potential. Like tributaries. Like family. Words swift
as bike tires on hot pavement. No one but me, the wind, the dancing

rain, and burning sky, the region where all these poems were seeded.
How lonely and marvelous the gestation, beyond definition and logic,
beyond the lonely boundaries of the invisible.