Climate Change*

Studying the ice age in 6th grade history
a girl writes an advice column, pen named Ms. Mammoth
(better luck to current columnists than the mammuthus primigenius—
at least they still get Disney).



* Courtesy of Poems 350, seeking 3.5 line poems about climate change.

The Distance An Ant Has to Crawl

The distance an ant covers is infinite
(compared to it)
me or you
could take a few strides,
but in whose steps can we
become?

Young boys choose dinosaurs
to compare
refusing the ultimate
distance
blissfully unaware
of the end.

The I-Beam

To build skyscrapers
higher than possible
means quickly
erect

pursuit replaced by speed
skylines
no thought of sunset.

Bay Window

To provide the illusion
of a larger room.

To increase the flow
of natural light.

To escape
the room
(without actually escaping) it
still
sitting inside
stuck
behind
a window.

Spire

Tiny winding staircase
rarely scaled.

The occasional tourist
Searching for something other.

Temporarily
untired
from aspiring

to reach higher.

Lean-to

I.
Three walls and a sloping roof (sometimes tacked on).
The reverse of a peninsula (a hat).
Shelter enough (for a snack).
An add on.

Invented space,
made of parameters.

II.
To lean on
as opposed to stand up.

To relax
in contrast to continuing.

To float
instead of treading water.

III.
To see
as opposed to analyze

To be
in contrast to competing.

Lean-to joy
to gratitude
to mercy.

Flying Buttress*

The image of a dog
comes to mind
cold, wanting
for supper,

or the secret that stays
your eyes
post jack-in-the-box
renewal,
demise

the inside-outside
dichotomous desire
to fulfill
(accompanied by the useless
mechanics of wanting
toask—
an assemble it yourself kit
missing one critical
washer).

A three
fights gravity.
Images spin and twist
your already flipped vision.

Appreciate the vaults of cohesion
and the way space intervenes.

* A counterweight outside the building.

Steel Reinforced Cement

Where is my steel reinforcement
I plea brittle and needy
of an architect
to determine
my maximum capacity.

Why am I not an elevator?
My worst fate then
could be plunging
to a scrap metal lot
where things just creak
and no one talks.

Arch and Keystone

I am the keystone
(of four parents
an isosceles arch
parts
diametrically opposed)
where my psyche dangles
from vital voussouirs
and when they battle
I decay.

I wish I were a limerick
so there was
a clever solution.

The Habanero Pepper *

Take a bite
all teeth in.

Challenging
senses
to slowly explode.

(You can handle more
than you ever know
just by taking a few risks alone).

Sit back,
Relax,
the house is not on fire

(our mouths soon
will fill with flame)
when we go under cover
love one another
no sense
too intense
our dreams
unincensed
in trusting spice
never fades.



* Beware what you touch
(afterwards).

Spray Paint

A picture is made
(like sand leaves a hand
in a rush).

Fits and decisions,
triggers and deliberation—
why does what spread where?
How can you
contain that thought?

The marks you make
stay
pieces of paint
permeate permanence
particle by particle
paving
towards the future.

Flecks of kindness
chips at cruelty
patience
pursuit
etched
in each moment
inked
(nothing wasted).

Musica

There’s this face you make
when you play—
the world has gone
away
your eyes
an unfocused lens
seeing a part of the picture
we cannot.

You become
the sum
of a child affront the television set
plus actuality
(seduction and fulfillment combined)
transfixed
a system inexplicable
to those not neurons
running in your synapses.

Oh to be a string
reverberating
in your passion.

Carol Kaye

Play
in the underpinnings of pleasure.

Be
the strings that quietly conduct
calm
commonality.

Hold
the ecstasy of outer ranges.

Hear
the coexistence
of striving
pieces.

Stay
true to the madness ensuing.

Love
the sounds for the sounds
the days
for the moments.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

To make a pie from scratch
is a labor of love
faith in what will come
of many minor elements
including self
to outdo the glory of berries alone.

I make you pie
because we have the ingredients,
(A pantry I’ve never known,
oh to taste this is such bliss,
I might melt
in a happy
spoonful
your mouth
warm
sweet
tangy
irreplaceable
each grain of flour
snowflaking
uniqueness

memsmerizing flavors
molding, delicious moments
ours to hold).

Green Couch*

It likes to embrace and to soothe,
actions it seems to feel as a kind of give-and-take.
It knows nothing of what the world believes
of its indolence.

If deflating and casting are its nature
it doesn’t care about its nature.

It likes the sleepy weight of your head
against its gently textured skin.
It likes the silent warmth
of the loyal home body.

Its understanding is the understanding
of sugar with coffee, of letting what happens come.

A couch craves no sectional attractions
no next door love seat.
It waits for bodily impact
with fluffed pillows,
content.

It is its own stanza, complete.

Time does not tempt it
old dreams and new ones rest here alike
helping you
to much deserved
rest.




* Emulation of Jane Hirshfield’s “Button”

Television

Oftentimes it mews
on and on
begging to not off
(making the background
unaware
of its status)
fighting some miniscule twig
(the thing you wish you did
yesterday)
messing with
the foreground focus
of what you want
to do right now.

“Turn me on,
to turn it off,”
it chants
in digital pixels
prancing the space between your face
and the screen
making real time seem
irrelevant
(the once shaking waves on which it transmitted
sine, cosine, cosine, sine,
erased to pieces
without patterns
precise representation
invading with swiftness).

Quick, let it take you,
take you away,
escape the bombardment,
of a very long day.

Eight Triangles

If people were made of pixels, they would not be triangular.
If people were triangles, they would not be equilateral
(for if they were, they could sit in a circle of eight
and make an octagon).
Most people can’t even see where a person’s three sides lie
(that would do for me—being boxed into three,
just not steam rolled).

Periodically triangles insert themselves
into one another.
If the triangles are too well matched
you may get the full face reaction
assimilation of two sides
to the point of destruction
rhomboidal creation
codependent cubing
selfless
limiting your sides to two
that might not be yours anyway.

Alternately,
triangles make a symphony
of tinkering by collisions.
There is no give, just the plink plink
of eating each other’s varnish.

If we could instead
be made of silicone
(ah the breasts it would enhance,
lips tighten, fake permission to take in
other triangles for a moment alone.)

Tales of A SAPIS Worker (at another school)

The substance abuse prevention and intervention counselor
will be six weeks late.
He is in the rubber room
(unrelated to kids).

He was playing tennis,
got mad,
smashed his partner over the head
with a racket—
it was proclaimed
a brain hemorrhaging rage.

Do not be alarmed,
he’ll be back soon

to discuss choices

with your first period class.

Hunter Green

To camouflage:
1. a strong desire;
2. a survival instinct, part of evolution
straighten your hair, wear
polka dots (when popular)
go retro
on occasion.

If you find you blend too much in
do not give up,
instead panic. Forever more,
change your clothes
at least five times
before leaving the house—leaving a mess
Is the first step
In self-destructive behavior.

While out, have enough drinks
to stop thinking
about your camouflage, or lack thereof.

Do not speak passionately about your ideals
(you may make others feel bad, or you may seem insincere—
you must have a motive behind your effusiveness—
worse yet you set yourself up for failure,
people may retaliate by competing,
ratcheting up the anti,
leading you to lie about your own greatness,
or cry in a single stall bathroom).

Quick get home before you trip
on the fault in the sidewalk.
Remove your clothes,
the sheet’s camouflage will protect you.

Sea Foam*

The legitimacy of the state
Is created by the will (or consent
in the case of ten percent turnout
local elections for politicians who may or may not
be puppets) of its people,
like the color of the sea floor
is created by light and water and eyes and reflections
and refraction and particles and algae and sharks.

How strange
that anything
be uniform.


* The Levellers (the party in favor of sovereignty, equality, suffrage and tolerance) wore sea green ribbons.

Maple Leaf

Cosmetic circles
make the middle of a tree.
A slice of my core
would reveal very strange shapes.

The amorphous heart
Right next to the rib cage
Is not its progeny
(mini-mes do not exist
inside of me).

Teal*

That the Prospect Park ducks return
is a wonder.
Once, in a botched attempt
at a romantic pavilion sitting
a spring bringing kissing session
derailed by the smell of rotting
drops of alcohol is molding bottles—
parties to which I would never be privy
(sheltered by roves—
the blessing of work hours)
a duck ambled by
missing its beak.

How terribly disturbing
its bared tongue
its homeless home
its vulnerability
against our protection.

* The eye color of the teal duck.

Iranian Green Resistance

Paradise is to the desert
as an oasis is to a therapy patient/
a bored child to uselessness.

The existence of an analogy
the happenstance of a desire
does not fulfill need.

A complimentary color
does not make two things match.

The history of the individual
the psyche we built of a past
does not come in pairs.

Solutions are challenging.

If the existence of paradise fixes nothing,
it does not make it any less appealing.

If a nuclear bomb offers no solution,
is it not like the societal craving to be “in shape?”

Komodo Dragon

Animalia
Chordata
Reptilia
Squamata
Scleroglessia
Varanidae
Varanus
V. konodonesis
lives with the privilege
of no predators
on its island.

With saliva made of pathogens
the world is a feast.

Pangaea

My body was yours
once. I felt so little
your hands
drove my fathers stick shift,
could move me swift, one armed
and trying to champion
the art of frozen vegetables
you too, young
with mystery,
attempting authority
like jumping waves.

The ocean roars
of unknown,
sand pipers
scurrying its edge
crab crabbing
the border or safety.

What else is there of today
but intention?

If only we had wings
for skirmishes
with what could be,
if only there were no need
for a plan.

For the love of crabs
we cannot see
the depths of ocean
phytoplankton to whale
complete
(the way we played
in the shower
head to drain).

The piper grasps
that waves do not repeat—
I am just coming to understand this now
I am happy
but wonder
if

seagulls leaves no footprints in the sand.

That we were once
might not have been
but for knowing
you too must think of me
when you notice the ocean

or that the world
is connected.

Summer Ice Coffee

Caffeine is enjoyable
when you are wide awake,
well rested,
unneeded.
When tired,
caffeine is
chaos.

Why must what we need
always be hard,
and what we want
so unnecessary?

See

That naughty piece of hair
you noticed
is sticking up again;
hydrogen bonds too crave attention.

Carry on
miniscule elements
amalgamate my desire

to be seen.

Advice

On the phone
you say not to
let my issues get me.

This feels like cake
in front of a kid
with a weight problem.

Not that the problems are weighty,
just that my eyes are bad.

Atlas (Rubiyat)

If you were told to hold up the sky
Would you do it quickly, willingly comply?
Or would you have something else to do,
Burdens common, the greatest seeming undue?

And would it be heroic to walk away?
Not to worry oneself day after day?
Why take on more strife just to gripe
When the world spins on regardless anyway?

Whose skies do you hold?
What complaints are your gold
That you treasure in lieu of greatness?
Let go of your burdens unfold.

Bolts of Melody

Everyday is beautiful;
everything will change.
Every moment has its magic,
can it be sustained?

Streams are born in mountains,
fountains born in form,
delirious deciduousness,
forever is forlorn.

Parameters are built,
experience is mad,
hopefulness is predicated
on never having had.

Meadows have many colors
the sky can just reflect
buildings try to touch its threshold
but never can connect.

How low on the horizon
can you see the sky?
What clouds and concepts intercede
discouraging your try?

As far, as far, in front of you
let your eyes roam free.
your dreams are sleeping just beyond
what the eye can see.

Driving with Dad II

By the docks on Third Avenue
you try to teach me
to drive stick.

Twice into third gear
I switched
when you confidently prodded me
towards greater Brooklyn.

You sat faithfully casual
by my side
until a bus turned
too wide
and I had to reverse,
stalled instead
immediately cried
with you shouting to turn back
on the car
to shift again
the bus horn serenading
our dispute.

I listened and shifted into reverse
and into first too,
across the street
then pulled over and said,
“never again.”

We switched roles then,
continuing the two steps forward
one step back
of daughterhood.

Me perpetually
in the back seat,
safe.

Driving with Dad I

We drive down the highway.
For the countless time,
I’ve put my life in your hands.

The music recedes to the background.
I focus my energy forward,
bracing for a crash,
staring down the speedometer,
silently telling it
not to let you go
too fast.

You joke about hydroplaning,
break the tension
(the mouting
family vacation).

In high school
you took the shoulder
of the Bronx Queens Expressway
so I would be on time to math,
me pressing my imaginary brake,
averting our collision
with the break lights ahead.

(Flashing behind my yes
my imagined image
of you spinning
over black ice alights.
Standing by the phone
you relayed this
above my ears,
I was only five
but I remember
the hushed tones
of thankfulness.)

In the backseat,
I stay silent,
loyal to your knowledge
to guide me.

Only Child

I told my mother once
that I liked summer camp
because I could tell the counselors,
yet unknown,
all about myself
from the beginning.

So much have I craved
for someone
to see things my way,
to validate
that those too
would be the decisions
they would have made.

That indeed
in my wholeness
I was worthy
of being loved.

For When We’re Apart/Passive Aggressive Intentions/Shakespearian Sonnet Attempt

Part I—Intention Expressed

When light peers my vision—you enter my mind;
This I tell you in gift: a pocket love song.
Forever I’ll sing words to shower you kind,
Like though far I feel, for your body I long.

Attention I’ll pay you while passing my day,
Though busy the world, I’ll become not content
To presume you’ll understand what I say
Instead I’ll care to express what I meant.

Blast! This seems so severely demanding
(I doubt you foolishly trouble yourself)
but since words are often palavering
why feign falsely that it means something less?

In my mind, you’re here when first I greet the day
and again come night, though you’re so far away.



Part II—Passive Aggressivity Sadly Takes Reign

Pay me attention all throughout the day,
And when the world’s busy, be not confused
Assure me my place won’t be taken away
Otherwise smiling, inside I’ll feel used.

I fear this makes me seem too demanding
(at the very least, so to myself)
but since it is truly what’s happening
why feign falsely it is something else?

When light first appears, you are on my mind,
This I see appreciated in your feeling strong
My mission I carry on to shower you in kind
But I lack confidence, for emotion I long.

Darling, am I there when first you greet the day?
And then again come night? Lover, will you stay?

NYC After Vacation

Ah! To return to
the smell of exhaust,
the sunset of smog
the reason for late nights
the rhyme of alarm
the unnatural undulations
of my urban lungs

A fondness I have
random collisions’ confusion,
the exponential power
of meaningless intersections.

Research Methods

When researching oneself
there is no directory of events
from which to systematically select;
there is no random
survey of life
things rise
like cream
reasons unseen
who was in the room
the time of day, the ray of light
the unisolatable way we’re hurt
is rarely convenient

We are not malls of personalities
sequestered on a clipboard
conveniently differentiated
by colors of tees
we are one
wardrobe
to change
is a challenge
let alone
stratify happenstances.
It would be to know
all the people you were
on the corridor
of your life
that had no walls
or classroom numbers.

What can we do—but digress—
study if your relationship is failing
by studying what feels bad
(you want people who are into cock-fighting
go to a cock fight).

The legitimacy of a sample
depends on what you look for.
Remember,
if there is a plateau,
it must involve time.
Adore your square of land;
learn to accept
yourself.

They're All Here

“They’re all here,” she would say
when another odd thing took place.

Emphasis on the “aw” in “all”
as if her mouth
could enclose
the oddity.

But it couldn’t
there was still the man
playing flute on the subway stairs
and the looming third rail
Dorothy who lived downstairs
her mop, vaguely her hair
she died and no one knew for three days
the doorman from Yugoslavia
who owned a building and a black escalade

And of course
she and me
walking to school
amidst stories.

Pyramid Lake

We are tired quiet in the car
talked out
compulsive concerns aired
looming third rail.

In the valley mountains rise siblings unknown

They corral wild horses here,
for adoption I don’t suppose
I could take one
home.

We speed to see
the sun set the lake
water never escapes
terminal end of Tahoe’s tears
evaporating.

“Tufahs” rise
towers
calcium carbonate
underground springs
bubbling up
minerals deposited out.

As the lake level fell,
the deposits stopped
became exposed
around the lake
marking places where fresh water escaped.

The cartography of what is underneath
what once was full ocean
now this.

Break neck speeds
cars explore narrow roads of near collisions
bubbling up ourselves
futures yet
unknown.

Once wild
horses
feed at trophs

At a light a man dances
an intersection
holding an ad.

We move cautiously
across this connection
towards fresh water
amidst termination.

Potter's Field

Things are so ordinary
and terribly
important.

Today
a kid
called me
the best teacher ever
and the dean called me Judas.

Someone rolled their eyes,
I ate kim-chi,
my cleavage burnt and itched
beneath my blouse
leftover sunrays dancing.

The gym teacher cried
her cousin died
a drunk driver
and there it goes—
days of anecdotes
untold.

My heart’s mad,
can’t take the layers of levity
adding up to weight.

Heavy
like flesh on a thigh bone
we move through sidewalks
streets of people
unknown

Stop and say hello

Smile at the shadow of vines

Remind yourself today is full
of what could be sadness
but isn’t.
It is
lit and lovely. Smile.
Those muscles know how
to remember that luck is beautifully horrific
and all we can do
is try to trust
how potter’s field
is sewn.

Over Caffeinated

Your cup is almost empty
and your brain is full
with your heart beat, hard beating.

Ode to Joy of Sorts

How little I know
still of you,
the thoughts you had,
little boy,
lost like me
growing up someplace
between imagination and
now.

The tissue of time
pre-systemizing
us for today
you in morning
by my side.

They say the beginning was beautiful
moments after
the big bang.
Simpler,
less atomic mess.

It must have been like breathing
when we first wake up
comprehending all there is
in front of us
by the common way we see.

Nanoproblem

I want to not write
this strange wish
for later.

I want to
not whist
after lyrics
unsung

I wish to be these words
lying on a page
not this body
strung out on
conceptual drugs.

I want to come home,
become the shower
and all ideals of
passionate love.

Villanelle Attempt

If one loses hope, tell me what one gains:
false tranquility in early waking light?
There can be no true protection from pain.

Have you ever dreamt that you held the reigns
pumping your heart gently, morning to night,
but if you give up, there is nothing to gain.

Perhaps when quiet moments are such a strain
hopelessness alleviates failure, quite
truly, is there no protection from pain?

From making decisions we all must feign
for incomplete assurance leaves great fright
but if one loses hope, tell me what one gains.

Contentment in every moment ordained?
Eventually wind ceases from holding a kite.
Truly, is there no protection from pain?

Bring on the evening when sleep says my name
and I’ll fight despair with all of my might
for if one loses hope, all that one gains
is knowing there is no protection from pain.

I Just Really Don't Have Time In My Life

Mariachis stood still
as I slept in my mind
the subway was crowded
as we crowds blew by

Over the bridge
we go one more time
nearer to work
back into line.

The sun is rising
I can almost see,
if it weren’t for that window frame
between you and me.

I close my eyes and
the water rises
my motion picture surmounts
I feel everything shaking
maybe we’re all going to drown

Please won’t you move
take your thoughts
out of space.

Give me my morning back
out of my way

I want the east river
to swim a summer day
nothing matters
no reason to say
“Hey! The sun is rising!”

Don’t worry everyone knows
they’re all enchanted
with how the Earth goes.
That’s how my movie ends
no matter that things are a mess

we’re just floating through winter
like ice cubes in a glass.

Grading

At best, grading is like
getting a compliment you asked for.

Mostly it is like asking for a compliment
and getting stabbed repeatedly by forks,
or like editing your own poems
with no pen
the mistakes are permanent
tomato sauce on a new dress,
only space for reprimand.

I search
for the line
to make my reflection
what I wish,
I want to see how brilliant
I have been,

but mostly I am not.

And you have so carefully written
all of these essays
I have to read
with no hope of going counter clockwise
to when I could have said
“Wait, before you write that,
think about this.”

But that moment is gone,
so now I must be
constructive.

“Nice handwriting,”
I could helplessly say,
and then sometimes I laugh—
you have been humorous
revealed yourself somehow
in this stilted form
you went beyond my limited
expectations.

Joy.

How Precarious

We argue over dinner,
still my mother watches
as I bike down second avenue

wavering still
like I am five
on the first cyle.

Once home
the mirror reveals
white hairs
on my head.
I pull them
one by one.

I am too young
for this
(Hair dye was too recently
saved up in change
at the drug store
to piss you off).

I do not cry out in pain when I cut my myself
over the avocado.

It is precarious
when we bike down streets
and no one is adequate
for the thoughts we dream
and the things we know
must be possible
if we want them.

We sleep on pillows
scream silently in sleep
and hope no one opens
that street side door
and stops us from storming
in the presence of others.

Things that could have been
lose themselves
like drops in a puddle.

Reno's Seduction

He tells me the mountains
are to the North,
the bedroom gets Southern light,
a real-estate gesture or two
and we are through
the apartment.

“Well-lit,” I say.

“Actually,
southern light is weak,”
he marks.

“Right,” I manage
to stifle a giggle
(In Brooklyn,
North is 125th St.
and South, Bay Ridge.)

He mentions something about a river,
a damn?

So cavalier
I should not be
back up
in the air
I was intrigued
by the crop circles
like a thumbtack
finds interest
in a map.

I’ve been here now,
scarcely six hours
waiting for you
to storytell this corkboard
into a heart
I’d never puncture.

A place I would love
if you alone told me.

Brain Image Scanner

Our brain imaging today
is like Galileo’s view of the moon
ancient telescopes
determining what we do.

We drive on through
forests outskirting Reno
discombobulated
no common view
finder.

You say, “I just want to know
if he really loves me,”
For hours we’re replayed
Each anecdote
like football play
reviews.

At some point
the call must be made

There is only one first step
on the moon.

Ingrid Alexander

My high school boyfriend and I
decided on a name
for our child to be.

It seems so naïve now
I cringe to write it down,
laugh nervously.

But this was not funny to us then.
It was serious.
We would get married,
and be together, forever.

Like most hackneyed thoughts
it too dissipated
into other humdrum
clichés of college romance.

After we separated,
the moments gathered
like streakers on a college campus
exploding through my green
mind when someone new laid me
down, but now it’s many more years later
and even those images
of flash photography
fade.

Except I remember
we were supposed to name her
Ingrid
Alexander.

Had she been real
what else might I remember,
have missed
or forgotten?

What embers of hope
would still glow
in my thinned
faith in love?

The Super

Frankie tells me
“Our building is like a church—
not just nobody can come in.
It’s my job to protect it.
I live here 50 years.
There was a young couple
like you,
but he was not one of us

she brought him from the street
they fight a lot.

She come downstairs
2:30 AM want to ‘use my microwave,’
and I let her in,
you know she’s in my building,
but I don’t want no part
of no domestic abuse
but my building’s my building.

I take care of people.

Nick downstairs
he stays to himself
and people talk.
But I pay him some money
to help me with the garbage.

Me?
I’m not a well man
but God don’t want to take me yet.
I got 70 years.
It was a good life.

One time I knew a man,
he had nowhere
so I tell him
‘come here,’
but then he wouldn’t leave
so I had to threaten him
with my gun.

I worked for Nixon once,
man those guys could party!
Good times we had
up til three in the morning
back up cleaning the next day.
That’s why God’s gonna take me
soon.

My wife, ay, I feel bad
she has to get up
the middle of the night
my medicine, ay,
God should take me
soon.

I have a bad knee
when it’s raining.”

Qualia

When 12 Harvard researchers
work tirelessly for years,
gorillas say
“Tickle, tickle, giggle, me, man,”
that is not a sentence,
no matter how much sense you speak,
they see the sign, but not the string.
If he could say
“Dear researcher
when you started to tickle me last year
my depression ended,”
this would be success
of sorts.

…..

When they read
independently
I pace looking
like I might kill
if someone speaks
(and smile encouragingly).

James flags me down,
follows the no talking signs
covers up half of the chapter one title
so it reads: “Good day,”
then he slides his hand left
so now it says “Bad day,”
inquires with his eyes
which one I might be having.

I smile
point at “Good,”
and walk away.

This is only depressing 20 minutes later,
when he’s on the same page
asking the same question.

It slowly gets louder
I gently bang my head
against the board
three times.

“Shut-up you’re gonna make her cry,”
someone shouts.

“Don’t cry, you’re letting them get to you,” Kaila says.

“Come on, shut the fuck up, she’s banging her head on the board.”

“She’s always doing that,” Shyisha says.


….


Watch how
bees can
only discus
honey.

Try having umpires
discuss Kierkegaurd
in baseball signs.

When

You start to get mad
when the substitute asks
why their grammar’s so bad
after you’ve listened to her
yell through the walls
all day.

You start to get mad
when you’re walking home
and in store front reflections
you see your own furrowed brow
flash yourself a smile
and it doesn’t go away
(meta headache
maintained).

You start to get mad
when after a year and a half
the Chinese boy
scores an age four
on a reading comp test.

You start to get mad
when the one who’s excelling
starts to act out because
her dad just got imprisoned
and he was the super
so they’ve been evicted
and oh, her sister’s gone missing.

You start to get mad
when you find out
the kid with the speech impediment
didn’t speak until he was four
because his dad beat him so bad
and he just got out of jail,
hanging around again.

You start to get mad
when you notice a girl
is mostly deaf
(she’s also a Russian immigrant
who’s half black
and hates black people
or maybe just her drug addicted mom
or maybe school
or maybe herself)
and her dad’s dying.
They’re already in a shelter
so I buy her shampoo
and mouth words at her.
The literacy coach mentions
“She doesn’t do her work in class.”
It must be my lessons
why aren’t I more astringent
about expectations?

You start to get mad
when the obese kid,
who saw his dad shot and killed,
writes about it sometimes
but mostly wanders around the room
looking for someone
who will pay attention.

You start to get mad
when this kid keeps repeating this noise
that you’ve rationally explained a million times
is annoying, disruptive, blatantly rude
said on a spectrum of calm to infuriated
to different tunes.
He has a mute brother
who he has to pick up
everyday after school
so he likes to be loud
he’s even pretty funny.
His mom gets called in,
she cries
at a meeting
where we all trip over ourselves
to provide useless solutions
for the under-aged, over responsibilified
who probably just wanted to scream.

I start to get mad
when I wonder how they even smile
when seven hours of periphery
nearly annihilates mine.

I’m just supposed to teach them to read.

3:10 pm

I hear kids loitering
the hallway
I listen
something bubbles
about the back corner
of the schoolyard.

I go to the door,
eyes scatter.

I call over Isaiah
ask, “Something going on?”

“Nah, we’re cool.”

“You stay away from it, you hear?”

“Yes miss.”

I go for help
but everyone has gone
home
already.

Down the hall I tell
the science teacher.

“Want to know what I really think?” he says.
I start to walk out
without the nerve
to say no
so he shouts
“It’s 3:10
not my problem,
not today.”

Back down the hall,
two kids try the office.
Kids from another school
surround the school they say
another teacher casually listens.

He tells one kid he’ll walk him home.

“Nah, I don’t need to be lookin like some fuckin pussy
walkin outta here with no teacher.”

“Oh.”

I offer the same to the other
and mumble
“Not that I’d be of much use.”

I’m told to call the guidance counselor instead,
and I do,
but surprise,
he’s left the building too.
He tells me nonetheless
to go downstairs
I’ll find a security guard there.

She’s slowly standing when I say,
“Excuse me, some kids are concerned
there’s some people waiting for them …”

“Dumb kids
should have told me earlier
it’s after three,
my shift’s over.”

“Oh” I say, “Well whose on next?”

“Not here yet.”

“Well isn’t there something we can do?”

“You let them tell you
your problem now.
I don’t let them tell me things.”

Then she trudged down the stairs.


Back upstairs the kids have gone.


I go to put my head in my hands

blue
with exploded marker.

Betty

She says she started
20 years ago
to write
again.
I ask if she remembers
the first moment
when.

Her husband cuts in,
he does,
recites the lines too,

blushing bellow his beard,

like winter
sheets warm.

After School 1/6

He said,
“Can you cry from a headache?

“Definitely,” I replied.

“Can you cry from nothing?”

“Well, you might think it’s nothing,
but deep down, maybe … ”

“Oh,” he said,
then looked down.

“Do you cry often?”
I asked

“No,”
he retorted,
too fast.

“Oh,”
I said. “So, do you want to work on the vacation packet?

“No, I have a headache” he replied.

“I cry often too,”
I tried.
But not that often
and not that way,
(we both knew).

Today somebody broke
his grandmother’s rosary beads.
His beads, he, who
is a talented artist first,
has a headache second,
and lives in foster care too.

He says “Thanks” before he leaves
I wonder what for and smile
meaninglessly,
wishing it could mean
more.