The speaker looks back on second grade, which she calls a terrible year, and finds that one thing has stayed sharper than all the rest: a picture in a book. The school she remembers is grim and cramped. There is a teacher who inspects fingernails and handkerchiefs, the smell of goulash, bread smeared with margarine, and a scrap of gravel for a playground. She says she was "chained" to the place, just as the teacher was.
Reading was her escape, and being allowed to sit on the windowsill with a book was a small mercy. The speaker herself seems surprised that such a book turned up in so barren a place. The image she remembers is a girl, a dragon, and a prince, a familiar tale of a monster demanding sacrifice and a sudden rescue.
The mood is dry and wistful, with a quiet longing. The title suggests the old story keeps repeating, and the poem hints that the child hoped for her own "unexpected release."