Third Grade

The Principal came to the door

And told John, who sat next to me,

That Mark, his friend and neighbor,

Five years older, had shot himself.

John, crying, was excused for the day

For Miss Cameron knew how it hurts

To discover that the boy you play

Hide and seek with every night

Want to die, shouting, "Home free!"

But the bullet only blinded Mark,

And he learned to tune pianos,

Married a loving woman,

Was forgiven by his parents

And his beautiful sister,

Who was crowned Queen of the May.

John, however, never forgot

That moment when the Principal

Came to the door and called him out;

And John, himself, died young,

Painfully, they said, of cancer,

One of the so-called natural causes.

[Poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann; written October, 1994.]