Kindergarten
There was a tree
Surrounded by a stone wall
As if for protection but from what
I don’t know
At recess we used to walk on it
Single file
Circumambulating the tree
And trying not to fall
Between the wall and the trunk
Grew waxy sharp-toothed ivy
The green of which seemed bottomless
We told ourselves
There were alligators in there
Until it became true
This in Illinois
No one had ever fallen in
Except for children
We’d never heard of
That we’d never heard of them
Was proof that they’d fallen in
How quiet we must have been
How focused on not falling
The wall wasn’t very narrow
Wide enough to stand
Side by side on
None of us would have thought
To push another in
Not at that age
Mrs. Kubitz must have watched us
Worried only about broken arms
I remember her kindness
The kindness of kindergarten teachers
A kindness like the kindness of saints
We sat on the rug and sang
Frere Jacques
Frere Jacques,
Dormee vous
Dormee vous
Sonnez les matines
Sonnez les matines
Ding Ding Dong
Ding Ding Dong
In a round
Mrs. Kubitz directing
The language strange
In our small American mouths
Then the translation
Are you sleeping
Are you sleeping
Morning bells are ringing
Morning bells are ringing
All those shimmering gerunds
Mrs. Kubitz
Such a German name
That paucity of vowels
As if at the time she was named
They were being rationed
She had a son some years older than me
Who killed himself
My mother told me
When I was a young man myself
But I had only known Mrs. Kubitz
As my kindergarten teacher
I’d never thought of her as a mother
I think of her looking back
Over her life as if over a poem
That has gone awry
Searching for the weak lines
The wrong turning
But unlike a poem
A life can’t be rewritten
When I remember us
Walking around the tree
I see him with us
On the stone wall
A young man with long hair
Looking down very seriously
Singing Frere Jacques
His voice deep under ours
He is taking such care with his steps
But then he falls