Sixth Grade

By Melissa Tuckey / Issue 11

They called you
to the office
for violations
you did not imagine
the trouble
your body or
dress code, or
how short your shorts
could be or
were allowed or
not allowed
the sudden trouble
of your legs
the body as
separate
from your dreaming
mind and how
you were warned
and stuck in those clothes
all day attending
the first indication
that your body
did not belong
and your legs
were not governed
by how fast
they could run
not even the bruises
and scars you acclaimed
belonged to you
how odd you felt
and suddenly wrong

MELISSA TUCKEY is a poet and literary activist. She has a background in environmental activism and is a co-founder of Split This Rock, a national organization dedicated to “calling poets to the center of public life.” Tuckey is author of Tenuous Chapel, a book of poems selected by Charles Simic for the ABZ Press First Book Prize (2013) and editor of Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology (University of Georgia Press 2018). Her honors include a fellowship at Black Earth Institute, a winter fellowship at Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and writing awards from DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and Ohio Arts Council. She holds an MFA from George Mason University, and teaches community-based creative writing workshops in Ithaca, New York.