Poetry in America

Mrs. Bailey Turns Up for a Poetry Reading at Hemingway’s Café in Pittsburgh

51 Mrs. bailey turns up for a poetry reaDing at heMingway’s café in pittsburgh The same permed hair and plaid shirtwaist, same mannish voice and unutterable name, Agnus, who delivered me daily from Smear the Queer on blacktop, kids who called themselves Hunkie, Dago, Polack, and I was none of those. How she found me after 23 years and another last name, she explained: she could count on one knowing look when she glanced up from the book, so she knew the writer in the newspaper had to be her little Julie who listened so well. Embarrassed, I lie, The only thing I recall from third grade is the Indians taught the Pilgrims it was time to plant corn when—and she joins me— the oak leaf is the size of a mouse’s ear. What about your times tables? she says. What about the morning I refused to wear boots, missed the bus, walked the whole way to school, rubbing tears and snot in my coat sleeves? If you got punished at school, it was twice at home, that was the rule, but Mrs. Bailey said nothing when I slipped late from the cloakroom during reading, nor did I sit alone without milk and fish sticks for my insolence. Mrs. Bailey, teacher of grace, my sevens and eights are still shaky, but do you know how elated I was long ago when you said, The surest sign of spring is bandages on Julie’s knees, or how proudly I wore those gauze lumps and the scars ever after? Mrs. Bailey, why did we only embrace and say meaningless things at Hemingway’s? What debt have we owed all these years to that willful eight-year-old? ...