Excercise Books Poem by Thomas Edward Puleston Rickarby

We label the parts of a flower,

the pistil, petals and stem

in faint blue books we were given

and told to stamp with our names.

One boy raises his hand like a flag

then decides to pull it straight down

when he catches sight of the teacher gazing

outside with an out of place frown.

The boy turns on the book with his pen

to scratch the stamen clean off of the page.

The teacher comes over, clips the wing

of his ear, asking 'What are you doing young man? '

The boy looks up, says nothing and thinks

'Teacher you taught me last week, before lunch,

we're all either woman or man'.