Sacul Rellek
Lucas Keller was tall and clunky,
like a Great Dane puppy.
Last April, when he turned 13,
he began writing his name backwards
on everything he turned in.
His friends called Sacul!
He answered.
Each day at his desk,
he lined up his pencils
and made a little yellow raft
on which he would drift away.
Sacul asked questions:
Do you want my name on this paper?
Does this count?
Do you knit?
His peers groaned.
I shook my head.
It took him ten minutes
to sharpen his pencil
for a five-minute writing prompt.
I threatened to charge a nickel
each time he wrote alot.
I explained he had no guardian angle,
had never worn cloths to school.
But then, in June, he reflected:
Sometimes poetry comes hard for me,
and sometimes it comes like an angel in the air.
He wrote that.
…
This poem is from the chapbook I Have One Student by Mary Ellen Redmond (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/i-have-one-student-by-mary-ellen-redmond/
Mary Ellen Redmond‘s poems have appeared in a variety of journals, but the publication she is most proud of is the poem tattooed on her son’s ribcage. A retired English teacher, she earned her MFA in poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She lives on Cape Cod, a glacial afterthought that juts into the Atlantic off the coast of Massachusetts.
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