Freeze!

I worked with a group of second and third graders yesterday and, I've got to say, I think I've written a poem that works brilliantly if its main purpose is to freak our second and third graders. I've twice read this poem to audiences of elementary school kids and twice gotten the same sort of "really?" disbelieving but kind of thinking it might be true reactions. I don't post a lot of poems (well, any), but I want to share this one. And I've included a picture of myself from the school district's monthly newsletter to add to my legitimacy.


Freeze Tag

I knew this kid once,
Jimmy West,
who was playing freeze tag
and, after he was frozen,
no one ever unfroze him,
and he stayed that way
for nine years.
All through middle school
and high school,
his friends had to wheel him around
on a cart and his parents
had to feed him dinner by hand.
Teachers just thought he was strange.
But his friends knew--
he was intense.
Finally, on his 17th birthday,
Allison Kalinwoski,
a girl who was playing that day,
tagged him and removed the spell.
You're free, she said.
Jimmy stretched his arms
and smiled. Wanna play
again? he asked.