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      May 28, 2020Presidential Fitness TestBill Hollands

      Image: “Mund” by Laura R. McCullough. “Presidential Fitness Test” was written by Bill Hollands for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2020, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
      Every year we’d suit up for the ritual
      humiliation. Seven demonstrations
      of my inadequacy for the red-
      faced phys ed teachers. Pull-ups
      were the worst. I’d eke out one then
      fall to the ground and look up
      from the dirt at the underside
      of their clipboards. Girls did
      “hang time” instead, and in 4th grade
      Laura Lugar hung in there
      for hours. Like a banana
      on a hook, she thrust her chin
      over the metal bar, curled her body
      into a crescent and didn’t
      budge. We went back to class
      and in between decimals and
      diagramming sentences the teacher
      let us go back outside and have
      another look at Laura. In my mind
      she’s hanging there still in her yellow
      uniform against the black dirt
      and the pale of the morning sky.

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the editor, Timothy Green

      “I just couldn’t keep from smiling, thinking about this clever comparison of the banana on a hook to a 4th grader doing ‘hang time.’ Poetry’s job is to help us see the world a little differently, and this poem does that, delightfully.”

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