First Day of School
No kindergarten for me
we went right at it

Beginning as we crossed East Tenth
and my brother mocking me
‘You can’t even spell dog,”
and this before it turned to God

or sew to so
their or there

way before that

What does it mean I can’t spell dog
I wondered
hoping my shoes did not need tying
I was working on that between dog and God
and trying to learn to skip
foreshadowing my troubles with dancing
beyond a mechanically reproduced box step

life would be so perfect
if I didn’t have to go to school.

Dog.
God.

God.
Dog.

First grade, no big difference.
Spell one, get the other.

Bill Hoke
June 2020

William English Hoke (Bill). Is 81 years young, a lifelong person with dyslexia and a graduate of the The Gow School. His career included working as a creative director in international advertising agencies, owning several agencies, owing a documentary film company. Plus self-published three books of poetry and haiku and still hiking and climbing in the Pacific northwest.