The Shaking
Rent from DeepDyve- The Shaking
The Shaking
A strict man with black hair combed straightback and a violet scar that flared
across his left cheek, he was openingworlds to us, reading aloud [End Page 161]
each Friday morning from Tom Sawyer,Robinson Crusoe and I forget
what he was reading when he suddenly closedthe book, placed his index finger before his lips
and tiptoed down the aisle, our small classroom silent,puzzled by what might be an unlikely joke
until he reached Buppa Harry's desk and liftedhim by his long blonde hair out
of his seat and shook him and shookhim hard, dropping him
onto the floor in a puppet-like heap.The rest of the morning, except for Janine,
who raised her hand like a white flag,we stared into our books, the words
drained of meaning, receding before my eyesinto a lost code. [End Page 162]
Paul Martin's poems have been published widely in journals, including Boulevard, New Letters, Nimrod, Passages North, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, and Southern Humanities Review. His book-length manuscript, Closing Distances, twice a finalist in the National Poetry Series, is forthcoming from Backwaters Press.
