Diagramming Sentences Poem by Michael Pruchnicki

The bane of my schooldays at Visitation
I thought every time Sister Caroline
called me to the chalkboard

Yet I rose and walked to the chalky board
and drew the horizontal line bisected
by a shorter vertical one

Subject BOY before verb HATES
and the direct object SCHOOL
appeared on milky slate

Sometimes the Dominican nun struck
back with caustic comment
one time with yardstick

Christ on his cross grinned at me
from the wall and I saw that smirk
of his and knew my doom

From September to June in years
to come I came to relish daily
diagramming sentences!