Miss Norma Jean Pugh, First Grade Teacher by Mary O’Neill
Full of oatmeal And gluggy with milk On a morning in springtime Soft as
silk When legs feel slow And bumblebees buzz And your nose tickles from
Dandelion fuzz And you long to Break a few Cobwebs stuck with Diamond
dew Stretched right out In front of you— When all you want To do is
feel Until it’s time for Another meal, Or sit right down In the cool
Green grass And watch the Caterpillars pass.. . .
Who cares if
Two and two
Are four or five
Or red or blue?
Who cares whether
Six or seven
Come before or after
Ten or eleven?
Who cares if
C-A-T
Spells cat or rat
Or tit or tat
Or ball or bat?
Well, I do
But I didn’t
Used to—
Until MISS NORMA JEAN PUGH!
She’s terribly old
As people go
Twenty-one-or-five-or-six
Or so
But she makes a person want to KNOW!
