A Happy Childhood Poem Rhyme Scheme

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William Matthews

A Happy Childhood Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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My mother stands at the screen door laughing	A
Out out damn Spot she commands our silly dog	B
I wonder what this means I rise into adult air	C
	-
like a hollyhock I m so proud to be loved	D
like this The air is tight to my nervous body	E
I use new clothes and shoes the way the corn studded	F
	-
soil around here uses nitrogen giddily	G
Ohio Ohio Ohio Often I sing	A
to myself all day like a fieldful of August	H
	-
insects just things I whisper really	G
a trance in sneakers I m learning	A
to read from my mother and soon I ll go to school	G
	-
I hate it when anyone dies or leaves and the air	C
goes slack around my body and I have to hug myself	I
a cloud an imaginary friend the stream in the road	J
	-
side park I love to be called for dinner	K
Spot goes out and I go in and the lights	L
in the kitchen go on and the dark	M
	-
which also has a body like a cloud s	N
leans lightly against the house Tomorrow	O
I ll find the sweat stains it left little grey smudges	N
	-
	-
Here s a sky no higher than a street lamp	P
and a stack of morning papers cinched by wire	K
It s A M A stout dog vaguely beagle	G
	-
minces over the dry fresh fallen snow	O
and here s our sleep sodden paperboy	Q
with his pliers his bike his matronly dog	B
	-
his unclouding face set for paper route	R
like an alarm clock Here s a memory	G
in the making for this could be the morning	A
	-
he doesn t come home and his parents	N
two hours later drive his route until	G
they find him asleep propped against a street lamp	P
	-
his papers all delivered and his dirty paper	K
satchel slack like an emptied lung	S
and he blur faced and iconic in the morning	A
	-
air rinsing itself a paler and paler blue	G
through which a last few dandruff flecks	N
of snow meander casually down	T
	-
The dog squeaks in out of the dark	M
snuffling me too me too And here he goes	N
home to memory and to hot chocolate	U
	-
on which no crinkled skin forms like infant ice	N
and to the long and ordinary day	V
school two triumphs and one severe	W
	-
humiliation on the playground the past	X
already growing its scabs the busride home	Y
dinner and evening leading to sleep	Z
	-
like the slide that will spill him out come June	A2
into the eye reddening chlorine waters	N
of the municipal pool Here he goes to bed	B2
	-
Kiss Kiss Teeth Prayers Dark Dark	M
Here the dog lies down by his bed	B2
and sighs and farts Will he always be	G
	-
this skinny chicken bones	N
He ll remember like a prayer	C
how his mother made breakfast for him	C2
	-
every morning before he trudged out	D2
to snip the papers free Just as	N
his mother will remember she felt	E2
	-
guilty never to wake up with him	C2
to give him breakfast It was Cream	F2
of Wheat they always or never had together	K
	-
It turns out you are the story of your childhood	G2
and you re under constant revision	H2
like a lonely folktale whose invisible folks	N
	-
are all the selves you ve been lifelong	I2
shadows in fog grey glimmers at dusk	J2
And each of these selves had a childhood	G2
	-
it traded for love and grudged to give away	V
now lost irretrievably in storage	K2
like a set of dishes from which no food	L2
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no Cream of Wheat no rabbit in mustard	M2
sauce nor even a single raspberry	G
can be eaten until the afterlife	N2
	-
which is only childhood in its last	X
disguise all radiance or all humiliation	H2
and so it is forfeit a final time	O2
	-
In fact it was awful you think or why	P2
should the piecework of grief be endless	N
Only because death is and likewise loss	N
	-
which is not awful but only breathtaking	A
There s no truth about your childhood	G2
though there s a story yours to tend	Q2
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like a fire or garden Make it a good one	H2
since you ll have to live it out and all	G
its revisions so long as you all shall live	R2
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for they shall be gathered to your deathbed	B2
and they ll have known to what you and they	V
would come and this one time they ll weep for you	G
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The map in the shopping center has an X	N
signed you are here A dream is like that	S2
In a dream you are never eighty though	O
	-
you may risk death by other means	N
you re on a ledge and memory calls you	G
to jump but a deft cop talks you in	T2
	-
to a small bright room and snickers	N
And in a dream you re everyone somewhat	U
but not wholly I think I know how that	S2
	-
works for twenty one years I had a father	K
and then I became a father replacing him	C2
but not really Soon my sons will be fathers	N
	-
Surely that s what middle aged means	N
being father and son to sons and father	K
That a male has only one mother is another	K
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story told wherever men weep wholly	G
Though nobody s replaced In one dream	F2
I m leading a rope of children to safety	G
	-
through a snowy farm The farmer comes out	D2
and I have to throw snowballs well to him	C2
so we may pass Even dreaming I know	O
	-
he s my father at ease in his catcher s	N
squat and that the dream has revived	U2
to us both an old unspoken fantasy	G
	-
we re a battery I m young I m brash	V2
I don t know how to pitch but I can	W2
throw a lamb chop past a wolf And he	G
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can handle pitchers and control a game	X2
I look to him for a sign I d nod	Y2
for anything The damn thing is hard to grip	Z2
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without seams and I don t rely only	G
on my live young arm but throw by all	G
the body I can get behind it and it fluffs	N
	-
toward him no faster than the snow	O
in the dream drifts down Nothing	A
takes forever but I know what the phrase	N
	-
means The children grow more cold	A3
and hungry and cruel to each other	K
the longer the ball s in the air and it begins	N
	-
to melt By the time it gets to him we ll be	G
our waking ages and each of us is himself	I
alone and we all join hands and go	O
	-
Toward dawn rain explodes on the tin roof	B3
like popcorn The pale light is streaked by grey	V
and that green you see just under the surface	N
	-
of water a shimmer more than a color	K
Time to dive back into sleep as if into	G
happiness that neglected discipline	H2
	-
In those sixth grade book reports	N
you had to say if the book was optimistic	C3
or not and everyone looked at you	G
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the same way how would he turn out	D2
He rolls in his sleep like an otter	K
Uncle Ed has a neck so fat it s funny	G
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and on the way to work he pries the cap	D3
off a Pepsi Damn rain didn t cool one weary	G
thing for long it s gonna be a cooker	K
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The boy sleeps with a thin chain of sweat	E3
on his upper lip as if waking itself	I
becoming explicit were hard work	F3
	-
Who knows if he s happy or not	G3
A child is all the tools a child has	N
growing up who makes what he can	W2