Not Simple at All: A Pantoum by Sherry Chappelle

depoetry

December 15, 2015

Simple is what they called my sister then
numbers never holding to slip into slots
when she scratched at learning and lost
all math. Gone - pluses, minuses and time:

numbers never holding to slide into slots.
She’d hand us money – ask us to figure
the math: the pluses, minuses, the times.
She redid first and third, then was passed on.

She’d hand us money – ask us to compute
as we’d bribe and bellow, plead and rail.
She redid first and third then, got passed on,
went from hand to hand, care to care to care.

As we’d bribe and bellow, plead and rail
she used smiles and whiles to get her way,
went from hand to hand, care to care to care.
For twenty, forty, sixty years we hoped she’d grow

but, she used smiles and whiles to get her way,
no change to who she was, or what she knew.
While for sixty years we hoped she’d grow,
she stayed our job, an eternal naughty child

We tried to change what she knew, who she was
but she scratched at learning and loss.
So, she stayed our job, an eternal naughty child.
Simple. It is what they call my sister still.


To read more poetry by Sherry Chappelle go to depoetry.com/poets/201311/01-sherry_chappelle.html.

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