Pamela Sue Hitchcock
3 poems
Insides
He was the boy in fifth grade
who slid down the slide
and sliced his thigh wide open
on a side bolt: Lee—
he lived in a trailer,
holes through the floor.
You could see to the ground.
His parents threw down rugs
in winter.
I went over there some.
He had a little cousin
born with one arm.
His mama would say don’t bring
that one-armed baby around
when we’re all trying to eat.
They’d leave it in the back at dinner.
Lee. He had thick glasses that made his eyes
look like house windows.
There was always a glare
on the lenses,
or something smeared.
The teacher paddled him every day
with a big blue oar.
He knew not to slide down sideways,
but he never listened.
The girls were all crying, the boys
arguing over what you call the insides
of a leg—they
said entrails, guts, fat-worms,
or just insides,
which won, the insides
of his leg looked like little grubs.
No one wanted to say maggot, not even the boys.
And when we squatted beside him to look,
I saw a piece of him move,
as though it fell, but I couldn’t find it later
in the dirt.
Then we heard he got flown
to Tulsa, flown out—
like that’s what you got
for ignoring the teacher, that’s what you got
for having smeared glasses
and a one-armed cousin,
that’s what you got.
Next day there were little rubber caps
over all the bolts,
so someone went down the slide again,
then someone else,
then eventually everyone
was on it.
Playground
What do you call those
go-rounds
without horses?
A girl fell under one
in our grade;
a boy—
I think he pushed her—
stood looking down
at his hands.
His shoes were an apology.
The thing clamored
and whirled on her;
someone kept pushing
who didn’t see her
underneath,
blood on a cheek.
When I think of it now, I hear
music, calliope, and the girl
is a clown.
But I know I’m mistaken; it wasn’t
that kind of ride.
The Day My Father’s Shop Towels Went to School with Me
Swinging shut the pickup door, my father
drove away. When his roll
of paper towels slipped out,
fell to the running board, then into the street,
I didn’t know how to make him hear me
yelling Come Back,
standing on the curb of my school,
rolling up the blue towels
that unwound down the street
like a sidewalk of sky,
then taking them inside
to my teacher,
who laid them on the chalk tray
below the blackboard,
below the math problems
and spelling words,
below the diagrammed sentences
that nobody I knew would ever say.
Pamela Sue Hitchcock is a native of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and is a tribal member of the Cherokee Nation. She was granted a fellowship to the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, and her work has appeared in the Squaw Valley Review. She has lived in the Ozark Mountains most of her life.