The Sad Time Traveler

He must have been seven or eight
when he stabbed a classmate in the hand
with a number two pencil,

he doesn’t remember why or how,
what classroom, what teacher
but it happened at La Juana.

He was a poverty-stricken farmboy,
never owned a pair of shoes
until he started school,

his mother patched all the holes
on his clothes and then
she died when he was twelve.

He would give anything
to go back and relive
those years again,

he would give anything
to relish each and everyone of those years,
memorize every single second with his mother.