Sentimental Education
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I'd just turned four and held a small toy spade.A larger boy placed both hands on my chestAnd shoved, with the result that I impressedMy buttocks in the sandbox where we played.I stared at feet on which I'd lately stood,Astonished and unable to digestThis brazen challenge to my toddlerhood.
That moment was a watershed. Till then,The people I encountered seemed to beExtensions of my own identity.Others, as others, were beyond my ken.I'd no idea a playfellow might lackA sense of our connectedness and seeMy person as an object to attack.
Our mothers, fortunately, were nearby.Mine, in one motion, swept me to my feetAnd brushed sand from my trousers' legs and seat.With an incredulous, reproachful cry,His seized his arm and drew him out of range.I felt relief, but it was bittersweetBecause we'd all grown separate and strange.
I couldn't, standing at my mother's skirtAs my antagonist was led away,Express these things as I have done today.I knew, however, that my tailbone hurtAnd, with a sense of wonder, watched my handExtend through space to where the toy spade lay,Awaiting its retrieval from the sand. [End Page 399]
Timothy Steele's collections of poems include Toward the Winter Solstice and The Color Wheel, the latter published in the Johns Hopkins University Press Short Fiction and Poetry Series. He is also the author of Missing Measures, a widely discussed study examining the historical and aesthetic background of the revolt against meter in modern poetry.
