by John Mattingly I wrote my first poem to Mary Lou in 1955 when I was in second grade. I saw her as an angel with a ponytail, a Venus in pumps and bobby socks, the future mother of my children and recipient of the bacon I would bring home as father of our big family. Or, at the very least, a girl I could talk to without her boyfriend Hank hanging around, making me feel like a misplaced traffic cone. To impress Mary Lou in the winter of 1956, after a big snowstorm during which I had seen her ...