Notes About The Poem
Mary Jo Fletcher's first grade class, Daughtery Elementary School, circa 1958
FOR YOU, MRS FLETCHER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Her voice was a slow river
carrying crayon boats,
her hands turning spelling mistakes
into origami birds.
Her hands moved like quiet miracles~
turning clumsy pencil scratches
into constellations,
showing us how to hold scissors
not as weapons but as wands.
She wore chalk dust like perfume
and knew each of us
by the shape of our wonder~
who needed stars,
who needed glue,
who just needed
to be told yes
one more time.
She never said hurry up,
only look closer,
letting the slowest readers
taste each word like summer fruit,
while the rest of us squirmed,
impatient for the next page.
Once, when Tommy cried
because his glue stick
wouldn’t stick,
she knelt beside him,
whispering, Let’s try it sideways.
And the world
tilted just enough
to make sense.
Even now,
decades later,
I catch myself
tilting my world
and thinking about you,
Mrs. Fletcher.
This poem was written as a companion to my memoir vignette titled "To Mrs. Fletcher With Love," posted on Poetry Soup if you'd like to read it: poetrysoup.com/short_stories/to_mrs_fletcher_with_love_13591
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