Why They Don't Teach Tack in History

I remember assigned seating.
I was one of the lucky ones -
R is almost always in the back of the room when it’s
alphabetical and
back there
we could get away with anything.
Tic-tac-toe. Notes. Even paper airplanes.
Mrs. Gorino never suspected a thing
as she enlightened the class once again
on the unprecedented importance of
long division in our daily lives.

I remember the day that tic-tac-toe lost its thrill.
X’s and O’s wouldn’t cut it.
We needed danger.
We needed adventure.
We needed risk.
Or Battleship. Or Clue.
Or a tack
from the corkboard
placed inconspicuously on the chair
of my neighbor.

I remember our pride:
We are geniuses!
How could it be that such a game
had yet to be played?
How could it be that Mrs. Gorino’s history books
had yet to record such innovation?
The Egyptians could keep their pyramids -
We had no use for Roman Aqueducts –
The wheel was just a rock -
We had Tack.

I remember when Maggie Hearthneck -
who by all alphabetical rights
did not belong in the back of the room -
joined the game
with a handful of shiny silver tacks
that she dropped
down my pants.

I remember standing,
slowly,
and walking,
waistband in hand,
legs strategically duck-footed,
to the front of the room.
May I go to the bathroom?
I mumbled
as a flood of tacks
rushed like a swarm of silver beetles from my pant leg.

Perhaps the world wasn’t ready.