It was fourth grade
and the most important subject in school
besides lunch
was P.E. – a hundred boys
fighting to be king of the
playground.
It was down to the wire,
Me and the new kid on the block
Joey MacIntyre.
He was the best at handball
and kickball
and I snuck there as a master of
hopscotch, hide-n-seek,
and Magic: The Gathering.
It all came down to the interschool
Softball game.
I held the ball as long as I could
until the wind-up and the pitch
but the ball just floundered
right down in front of me
and everyone laughed:
HA HA! Aaron throws like a girl!
SISSY LA LAAAAAA!
I learned that incidents like mine
are caused by the Left-hander Syndrome.
Ninety percent of the world’s population
is right-handed.
Now, this leaves southpaws
like me, to adjust to the right-handed
construction of society
going against the psychological
and physical comfort of the lefty.
Scissors, can openers, coffeemakers
car ignition switches, cooking gloves,
many musical instruments
and cars built in right-lane countries.
At least urinals are made with the handle
on the left-hand side,
except that is the hand I eat with.
Lefties have a life expectancy of 65,
seven years lower than the life expectancy
or a right-hander.
Waiting for my first grade teacher
to bring me a left-handed pair of scissors
was like waiting for Dick Cheney to
file a shooting incident report.
I was often uncomfortable,
I couldn’t write as fast during timed exams,
and eventually I gave up on passing
love notes to Ms. Right.
Her father probably wouldn’t let her date lefties.
Eventually, I got a job
at Arby’s, but I wasn’t allowed
to use the roast-beef slicer
because Dugan, another lefty
already cut off more
than someone could chew
for the rest of my life
I would be wary of drill presses
bandsaws, and textile machinery.
It shouldn’t cost me fifty bucks
for a pair of boxers with the fly
opening on the left-hand side.
Kill Righty!
The first three Batmans:
Michael Keaton, George Clooney, and
Barack Obama, are all left-handed.
If Gotham City can trust them,
then just give this southpaw
a hand.
From: Chainsawsmoking: Poems Wrapped in Cellophane
Summary
“Lefty” by Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is a poem centered on place and geography, love and relationships, family. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
Analysis
Voice
A personal, first-person speaker combines recollection with direct emotional address.
Style and form
The poem is line-driven, compressed, typographically emphatic, first-person. The poem moves by accumulation: images, references, and tonal turns build on one another, so meaning emerges from their relationships as much as from narrative sequence.
Themes and imagery
Its strongest thematic currents include place and geography, love and relationships, family, music. Concrete images give those abstractions physical weight, while changes in diction and pace keep the poem from settling into a single emotional register.
Reading the poem
A productive way to read “Lefty” is to watch how its images change function as the poem progresses. Details that initially establish scene or memory become emotional evidence. The result is a poem whose argument is carried through association, rhythm, and image as much as through explicit statement.
Explore this poem
Source & rights
Source: Chainsawsmoking: Poems Wrapped in Cellophane (Lawn Gnome Publishing, 2016)
Rights: © 2016 Lawn Gnome Publishing. All rights reserved.