Friday Poem: "In Time of War, 1942"

In Time of War, 1942

Weekly assembly
Bible reading
Principal intoning
Everyone white-shirted-bloused

Except for me
Whose sole white shirt
Unworn because unwashed
Which did not go unnoticed

An Assistant Principal
Castigator of trivial transgressions
Breathed fire upon me
Before my stony class

Melting me to a puddle of disgrace
In which I lay bleeding tears
And I never forgave
Even to this very day

What festered within her
To prompt such eager disdain
Heaping helpings of ineluctable shame
Upon a child in time of war

I see me weeping yet
Raise your hand who share my pain
Applaud she is by now forever dead
Whom lightning must have struck at last

10/3-10/6/07

Copyright 2007 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.