Cartwheels (Monday Poem)

by Jean Little


I can't turn cartwheels. I've tried and tried.
I can start. I can get about halfway . . .
Then I buckle over somehow and collapse sideways.

I told Mother. "Practice," she advised.
I said I had. It didn't work. I just plain couldn't do them.

"Well, you can write poems," she said,
"And you're so good at Math . . . "
She went on and on and it was all very nice.
I appreciated it.

I still can't turn cartwheels.



from Hey World, Here I Am! by Jean Little, 1986, HarperCollins