When a girl in our school lost a finger in Wood Shop,
Mr. Cline cut from a stray pine board
what he sometimes called a prod, sometimes a handle.
No longer would a student in his shop class
push by hand
any board through a circular saw.
When I spoke of the lost finger to my cousin,
he asked me what she was doing taking Wood Shop.
This was still the sixties,
and a girl in shop was way beyond him.
he asked me what she was doing taking Wood Shop.
This was still the sixties,
and a girl in shop was way beyond him.
I presumed she was trying to make a point.
What point, he said,
that women could lose fingers too?
What point, he said,
that women could lose fingers too?
That year I kept all of my mine and graduated
with a pine bookcase, badly sanded,
that wobbled on its legs.
with a pine bookcase, badly sanded,
that wobbled on its legs.
Sometimes I remember a high school geometry class,
a girl in a front row desk,
her ring finger bandaged with gauze.
a girl in a front row desk,
her ring finger bandaged with gauze.
How determined she looked chewing her pencil,
the intricate proofs
of Pythagoras
unraveling behind her eyes.
the intricate proofs
of Pythagoras
unraveling behind her eyes.
Read on . . .
“Terminal Resemblance,” a poem by Louise Glück