Long Ago In A Lover's Life Poem by Curtis Goodnight

 
Third grade
Oh God not again!
But...but I have new button shiny
eyes
and I have velvet soft careful
ears...
       and now  a dazed and wounded
heart...
Yet do not imagine we are weak
we third graders
with our doughty selves.
We toss our mittens to the winds
we slush about in stocking feet.
Everything
-hear and understand if you can-
Everything is here
inside
Bundled snug
toasty
to white hot.
And when my velvet ears hear
and my shiny eyes see
More you
and less me
Do not be so surprised
to be burnt back to third grade
while I carefully place my mittens
on your ashen shadows