I tell my mother I do not remember third grade.
Most other years I remember
but my memory of Mrs. Nickerson
and third grade is very sparse.

I say It was a disheveled time in our lives
We were a disheveled family my mother responds

Mrs. Nickerson was kind of awful she says.
And asks if she was the teacher that sat on top of our desks.
No I tell her. That was Miss Welch.

Mrs. Nickerson was the one with a hunch back
and was quite gentle.
Her husband was a photographer
for the Cape Cod Standard Times.

The thing I do remember from third grade
is the Dick and Jane reader.
Then the memory stirs
of my mother, after school
sitting at one of the small desks in the back of the room
Mrs. Nickerson in the one next to her.
They are talking about me.

Later that day my mother tells me
Mrs. Nickerson complained I was incorrigible
for taking my Dick and Jane workbook home
to work at on my own.

My mother scoffs at the accusation
of any third grader being incorrigible,
shakes her head and with a smile
says, In the future,
just leave Dick and Jane at school.