RICHARD FEIN
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RICHARD FEIN Counting by FortyI was like one of Pavlov's salivating dogs. History, English, French, Math, and Science, were each forty minutes long and bracketed by bells. The first bell was the worst, sit down, pretend to learn, and count. But then, at last, came the second when I could unbend my knees and walk for five too-short minutes to the next class. That five minute freedom was my Pavlovian reward, what I drooled for every two-thirds of an hour. My adolescence was dragged along by a chronological chain of forty minute links. But now if my lifetime is one figurative school day, then the first period started with homeroom bell, when attendance was taken and I lacked the sense to call out absent. Now, that final second bell will soon ring. I've counted past thirty-five already, in metaphorical minutes, to when I'll unbend my knees and enjoy a last class dismissal, an end of day, an end of term, a higher grade promotion. And like those school days long ago, I will have learnt nothing, but to count by forty, but to count by forty, then to count by forty again.
Copyright 2006, all rights retained by the poet
