What She Knew Poem by Marc Mannheimer

We were on the upper field, practicing plays
(I really hated practice;
didn’t care much for games, either.)
The incarnation of stupidity,
or so we thought of him at that moment,
came running up from the lower field
– he had skipped out of practice
and was arriving halfway through, out of uniform.

But, one sentence to coach T.,
and it was forgotten, and he was forgiven.
“There’s a girl choking by the building.”
We had never seen coach T. run,
(a huge guy, in height, weight and muscle)
let alone run so fast.
We followed down the hill in a few minutes
to find her on a bench,
turning back from blue to peach,
coach T. standing next to her.
I think he had
Heimliched a piece of gum
from her throat.

The next day,
I looked over at her a couple of times
in Spanish class.
I guess I’d noticed before,
but never appreciated,
how pretty she was.
She gave off this aura
of humility,
real and palpable,
as if she knew something
it would take years and years
for any of us
to understand.