A Zealot in Big Muddy

What did three quatrains and a couplet—
(Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnets?)—
really mean to the seventh grade?

Miss Worley ranked them in importance
just below the Ten Commandments
She didn't use those exact words

but we saw that Sunday school gleam
in her Methodist eye

and when she stood before the class
with all the power of her ninety pounds
we could count the waves in her marcel

McDaniel, Wilma. (2001) Borrowed Coats. Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, New York.
Courtesy University of California, Merced Library. Copyright owned by the Regents of the University of California.