Poet & Teacher

I.
Caffeine waning
sugar crashed
boost craving

It is late afternoon
and I want

II.
Let your eyes
linger me longer
I want to feel
not solve
your problems
though I will pretend to care

Notice how I just started using you
(Who am I talking to?
You always in need
I is never not in want
and who are they?
She he impersonal
a distant cousin
unaware)

III.
This is a warning
I will manipulate

life’s demands
beyond restraint

Take me one step further
nothing left of shoulds

Pay me your attention
give me all of you

I get fatalistic at intersections
this could be it

…

Today in peer mediation
one student repeatedly apologies
the other refuses to accept

I said
Really you don’t think he can change?

He said
Nope

I said
There’s no reason to be alive
if you don’t think people can change

He said
He’s gonna keep picking his nose

A student passing by said
Ask him to wash his hands

He said
Nope

She said
How about a glove

I said
Hold on!

…

If the conductor waits
for everyone to make the train
it will never leave the station

I would like to eat a strawberry
at the end of the day
when I have almost had
a headache too long

I would like to look
the way one is supposed to
with wet hair
just out of the shower
(feisty not bedraggled)

I would like to distract people
I sit across from at meetings
shampoo commercial
attention stealing
from a vitally important seminar
on topics all too devastating

I would like to feel my lips
on the cold strawberry
and flush my cheeks
like a fan does hair
and on demand inspire
slow motion movies

I would like at the end of the day
to be that woman
who has her strawberry
and flaunts it too
who feels success
like adrenaline
not like a low percentage vaccination
in a developing nation

I would like to taste the taste
of strawberries
lust simple and true

You say simply
my name
and there is air
to breathe
enough

You say simply
my name
my ears go flush
not blotchy afraid
but smiling skin
untouched

You say simply
my name
my government a rush
invocation evoked
anger flushed
(memories of parents
the first of bloom
unfolding mixed up
associations mingle
so much, so much)

You say simply
my name

our eyes
touch

Today I planted plants
hearing my mother make fun
of my pledge to grow
gardens later in life

whenever that comes

and yet the leaves called

the consistency
the possibility of
supposed to’s
xylem and phloem
the eye of the storm
the separation
lightning and thunder
distance space
if we let it

will it be okay?

What can I do?
but say truth
to you even when nothing
will be good enough
to make you solid firm good
well understood

A storm is a storm
though you know its cause

Chaos remains
if you know its source

And here we are
witnessing crisis
imagining blooms
mirages from desert

Where are you tonight
while the storm rages on?

Where are you
while I sleep peacefully here?
Minor inconsistencies creep
nightmares barely there

Is your skin crawling
with lack of a hug
while I sip wine and pontificate
on how much better you’re owed?

Where are you when
I’ve decided I need a break?

Where are you breaking
alone?