September was vivid as a kiss
or a hard push back then--
one scarce, one common.
The smell of a new eraser, the pungent insistence
of a just-opened jar of paste, the grind of a sharpener,
or the sound of snubbed scissors cutting through
construction paper--I remember them all.
I loved the school library with the soft edges
of books read a thousand times, the dark wooden
window frames, the rows of tables like boats at a marina.
September also meant doctor's waiting rooms,
the assault of hospital smells and rooms full of
us guilty damaged goons, our mothers' faces
as brittle as dropped plates. We're defectives and know it.
I remember. Here is my hat being thrown ahead,
out of sight, down the hall. Here is the boy touching his face
while staring at mine, afraid he might catch the ugly.
Here are the mimics, a circus of relentless clowns.
I remember all of it, though to look at me, you'd never know.
That child rides on my shoulders and inside my mouth--
the one that could not make herself understood.
I was educated and the lessons were both wings and anvils,
the thorn in my flesh that God gave His stunned child.
________________-
for What's Going On?--"Education."
Image: The Broken Witness by MistiStudios, redbubble.
Music: Morrissey November Spawned A Monster
