Are you old enough to remember
diagramming sentences? He has

forgotten what to call all those
parts of speech but he knows what

they are and where they go and
writes like he’s riding a bicycle.

Once you learn, you never forget.
He’s concerned that the basics

will be lost in this age of social
media and mostly he’s concerned

about what grammar school and high
school teachers will face and maybe

already are facing with kids who
don’t know how to ride the bike of

sentence diagramming and as he
peddles down the literary street,

he wonders once again about the diff-
erence between a gerund and a gerbil.