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Physical Education
Her bodily growth is stunted by the long want of exercise, and when, on attaining womanhood, she is brought out, her complexion is pale and wax-like.
The coach has grown larger with each decade
until, wrestler-fat, she travels to the hockey field
 
in a golf cart rattled with whistles, rackets,
sticks, and cleats. From behind the wheel, she metes out
 
laps like lashes, and terrified, they circle
the school the way water, not yet furious,
 
trains around an impatient drain: run—
run—you girls, you stupid, stupid girls.

Opmerking redacteur: ‘Environmental Awareness: The Right Whale’, ‘What They Are Missing’, ‘Physical Education’ and ‘Reunion Weekend’ are from a sequence entitled ‘All Girls School’. The epigraphs are from the chapter ‘The Seclusion of Girls at Puberty’ in The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion by Sir George Frazer.