I remember the bus taking me

from the flats near East Boston's Day Square

to Orient Heights and the yellow-brick edifice

built into the hillside

the Manassah E. Bradley Elementary School

I remember Donald calling me Freight

and John being taller and smarter than me

he knew things about science that I didn't

I thought that 1980 was "the future"

which it was

I dreaded moving up to the sixth grade

which meant the Joseph H. Barnes

a tougher school with tougher kids

*

I had a crush on Terri 

she teased me mercilesly at first

but we became buddies

as the year progressed

we'd always get taken to task

for being chatty with each other

in the back of Miss Kelley's classroom

Terri was born in September I recall

nearly two years older than I

who had been double-promoted

and who was born in June

the opposite end of the school year

one time before we became

semi-friendly

Terri made me call her ma'am

I didn't want to get beaten up by a girl

so I complied

I should have doubled down

and called her Your Majesty

to see how she'd react

truth be told

I'd have kissed her shoes

if she had asked me to

*

there was the time I called Laura

a slut not knowing what it meant

(I was upset at some routine affront)

and her cousins in their mid-teens

wanted to teach me a lesson

I evaded injury by apologising