-Dedications from the Hugo A. Dubuque School-

If you push Joyce Jewel to the pavement

On the way home from school
And she skins her knee on the concrete

Her case against you will be adjudicated
In the morning by cranky old Miss Stanton
Delivering her verdict with a swift "rat-hand".

The whipping stung like four disturbed hornets

And the thin switch gripped in her meaty fist

Whooshed like a terrible wind and snapped

At each of four strikes to the trembling fingertips
Of this poem-writer as a fifth-grade kid.

Stanton's office was on the first floor corridor
Directly above the stinking trough in the school's
Dank and miserable basement where
The boys urinated throughout the day

So she always smelled like evaporating piss,