PAD Day 22: A Certain Skill

 Today's prompts from Writers Digest and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "tell me" and/or "don't tell me" poem, and (2) "write a poem about something you’ve done – whether it’s music lessons, or playing soccer, crocheting, or fishing, or learning how to change a tire – that gave you a similar kind of satisfaction, and perhaps still does."

I interpreted the first prompt as an invitation, in a way, to write a narrative poem (or a non-narrative or cryptic one). I've been doing that a lot this month anyway, it seems - some of of the ones I've called "prose poems" are really much closer to prose. But here's another, about a skill I picked up in high school which came in handy through the rest of my life. ("Qwerty" of course, is the beginning of the first row of letters on a standard keyboard. There is a passing reference to "tell me/don't tell me" in the poem, too.)

Qwerty
 
“Take a touch-typing course in the business track,”
said my high school counselor. “It will help you
when you have to type all those college papers.”
 
My buddies scoffed at the idea. “Don’t tell me
I can’t do it,” I replied. “Besides, it’s a good way
to meet girls.” That shut them up.
 
I was kind of right. I was the only boy in class,
but my shyness prevented any real connections,
except for Lynn, the pretty girl at the next desk,
who slipped me a piece of gum one day,
against the teacher’s rules. Five minutes later,
I was in trouble and spitting it out.
She snickered and whispered, “You have to
chew it like you’re not really chewin’ it.”
We went out a couple of times, but everyone
said she was out of my league.
 
That’s not the important part.
The important part is that I actually learned
to touch-type, and I got pretty fast, though
I never won a speed drill in class.
My fingers developed the same kind of memory
that pianists get, an instinctive sense of place.
I went to college with a sea-foam green manual
Smith-Corona, and pounded my way into late nights
to get that those term papers done on time.
 
But I also started typing poetry,
which helped me meet the love of my life.
She liked my “moody poet” vibe,
and that some of my poems were about her.
We married a few years later, and we sold
that Smith-Corona at one of our yard sales,
but I still compose verbal sonatas
with fast fingers, on my desktop computer,
sometimes long into the night.