Pledge
By Dion O’Reilly
At Mountain School, the white-faced,
clock clicked eight. I stood, right hand to left breast,
recited rhythm, felt safety in meter,
felt—like a door flown open—the final
for all, which I took
to mean four-legged beasts, bugs, clouds,
geese, moons, planets, billions of suns.
For all meant us—pinafored girls in cotton socks
& patent leather, hemlines to knee,
legs pimpled with cold, meant kids with pinworms
and drippy nostrils, meant Barbara who bought
the best clothes, who’d one day get a Beemer and a new nose.
For all, we said in unison, then sat like little robots
in wooden chairs, began our numbers,
our Dick and Janes, our in-line art,
while under my chalky thoughts, as I hopscotched
and foursquared, I savored . . . for all, for all . . .
Time crashed. Kennedy was picked off in a Lincoln,
next the Reverend, the second Kennedy, Malcolm X;
a war ate our brothers, the president was a crook.
Nearly old enough to vote, we refused
to drone the old words, stood silent,
hand over heart, pale defiance on our faces.
The teachers didn’t care,
but I, for one, missed for all, heard it
in the whispered undersides of leaves, the lit-flame
of a single wick, the creak of crows.
Not under God, not for which it stands, not the accurate,
misspoken invisible—not the flag, its stripes
like strips of wounded bandages,
just for all. Final trochee:
Two words—a universe inside them.
Dion O’Reilly’s third book, Limerence, was finalist for The Floating Bridge Press John Pierce Chapbook Competition for Washington State Poets. She is the author of Sadness of the Apex Predator (Cornerstone Press 2024) and Ghost Dogs (Terrapin 2020). Her work appears in Tar Poetry Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Sun, and Rattle. She is a podcaster at The Hive Poetry Collective, leads private poetry workshops, and is co-editor of En•Trance Journal. She splits her time between a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington.
Photo credit: Arthur Reis on Unsplash.
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