Betty Bonham Lies
Outta Here
Third period we girls all had home economics,
taught by Miss Rust.
Our mothers took exactly the same course,
but it was called domestic science then.
We understood our work was not just homely,
it was savvy, of a woman's kind. Girls learned
to make things that were gone in minutes:
well-balanced meals, clean rooms, crisp white aprons.
The boys took shop. They built birdhouses, lazy susans,
paddles they would never be hit with,
they drew sharp lines with tools
that packed up neatly into felt-lined wooden boxes.
I coveted boys' boxes. I wanted one of those.
Bio
For most of my life I have taught--every age from infants to adults. Poetry is my love, and I've published three collections, but also three books of prose. I live in Princeton, NJ, where I am a member of the Cool Women Poets and U.S. 1 Poets (the country's longest-continuing poetry collective). As the senior poetry editor of U.S. 1 Worksheets, I get the pleasure of meeting many new poetic voices from all over the country.