"Educational" by Chloe Martinez

Educational

On the tour of the public school kindergarten, my mother learned
that the books were kept in cupboards, safe from sticky little hands,
so I went on scholarship to the private school in the next town,  

where I did not notice until at least third grade
how different my things were from the things of my classmates.

The halls shone beautifully with dark tile and mahogany baseboards,
copper plaques recording the names of donors and graduates.
Outside, landscaped gardens and ancient trees. I worked on  

growing my two braids long as Pippi Longstocking. A girl made
fun of my odd lunch. A chubby boy teased me on the playground  

till I pushed him. Then he ran crying to the teachers: he had fallen back
into a sandbox shaped like a dinghy and torn a hole in his new white
canvas cargo pants. Everyone seemed to have the same Trapper Keeper, the same

color-changing shirt, the same hair. I wondered obscurely why,
but I was small and easily distracted. In the school library I read

every Little House on the Prairie with Mrs. Reardon, cocooned in that deep
prairie snow, that fight for survival. Back in my classroom, I asked to read
See Spot Run with the others. My vague attempt at fitting in.  

At the end of each year, the class party was held at someone’s enormous house.
At one house, tape on the floor led the way, labyrinthine, to the bathroom.

At another, a boy from my neighborhood jumped off the diving board
and sank, never having learned to swim. I remember lush suburban forest,
green lawn, stately house, a rectangle of perfect blue water, and at the center of it all,  

my father, clothed, who kicked his shoes off and dived in to haul the boy up.
The rush of parents pulling the boy out of the water, laying him down

on the ground, where he coughed and was all right, a ring of water darkening
the pavement around him. I was proud of my father, the hero.
At the end of third grade, I got glasses. Things began to come into focus after that.

Chloe Martinez

Chloe Martinez's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Waxwing, Prairie Schooner, The Collagist, [PANK], and The Common. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a semifinalist for the 2018 Perugia Prize, a book reviewer for RHINO, and a reader for The Adroit Journal. She is the Program Coordinator for the Center for Writing and Public Discourse at Claremont McKenna College, as well as Lecturer in Religious Studies. See more at www.chloeAVmartinez.com.

Headshot: Jamel Velji

Photo Credit: Staff