the higher shift is near
at our fingertips
we could stay in first gear
or fly on our wingtips
we’ve driven here before
getting lost along the way
can we dream no more
and make the cross-country sway?
i wait with clutch in hand
and drive into the night
surrounded by endless land
i wait for the time without fright.
the car picks up speed
and we slide back in the zone
it’s everything we need
yet every fear of being alone.
single women in spaghetti straps
men in khakis, collars and ties
linger in line for $3 microbrews
as we soak up the sounds of summer
girls giggle and groove at the front
forgetting for once they’re so small
beer bubbles in belly, beckons a smile
carrying kids through crowds into crescents
the ride home through Victorian
Colonial Craftsman Contemporary
bike lanes on every side street
brings a breeze of love through Lexington
lovely to love, to live, to meet.
for you
it is the word
the life
the soul
for me
an annual cultural show
actors shifting, shouting
trying to convince me
you thank me
beg me to return
perhaps i will
but no season tickets for me
no standing ovations, bravos
for words that are lost
among the shouts, the anger,
the heavy weight of guilt
for a life i love too much.
with chunks of chicken
sticker books and melting chocolate
crinkly bags of beef jerky
mini pencils strewn like petals
crumbs in every crack
we make our way along the border
its golden sphere beckons us to stop.
we can’t go inside but see the perfect playground,
the grass soft as our new carpet,
the two-story fountain filled with children
who hear it erupt and rush
like carnivorous hawks toward fresh prey,
and i forget
(for all of ten minutes)
that i am not one of them,
but the parent
now soaked from head to toe,
dress sticking to my legs
as my three little girls
weave me in and out of spurts
in our quilt of childhood joy,
sewing up the perfect end
to a dogged day’s drive.
it’s another event
at the school of selfish parenting
teachers with microphones
can’t control
the stream of camera-ready vultures
clogging up the aisles
standing in front of the spotlight
chatting away in ignorance
as our tiny children
march across the stage
in caps and gowns
sing their off-key serenading songs
that we will neither see nor hear
thanks to our entitled generation.
this is just to say
i have left
my bicycle on its rack
with the garage door open
you will walk out the door
drive to the store
and buy mint chocolate chip
that will sing in my mouth
take the bicycle down
electronically shut the garage
and remind me again
how i married perfectly at twenty.
the bones surround you,
starved from the dried-up sea.
you make your way through the maze,
darkness bearing down on the desert,
cold as a wintry mountain night
somewhere between the tail
and the cavernous rib cage
your pride follows behind,
a shadow of who you know you can be
lost in the wilderness of the boneyard.
you pick through pieces of skull,
sifting for the brainwaves that once
put thought into these bits of bone,
the iciness of your surroundings
building a tenacity you didn’t know remained.
your muscles tighten, the heartiest moving
you into a rhythmic undefined melancholy
through the motions of unreachable stars,
and you give in, release yourself to the night
just as Aurora touches your cheeks with her fingertips.
you resist, the dawn’s first touch as cold
as the depths of the boneyard in its darkest hour,
but the gentle kiss of radiant light awakens you,
casts away the shadow you’ve let fall behind,
and guides you to the mouth, the opening, to freedom.
If you suspend a student
for inappropriate behavior…
he’s going to have to make up his work.
When he makes up his work,
you will mark it late.
When you mark it late,
he’ll probably go whine
to his mama and daddy.
He may even ask for some new
baseball shoes as well.
When he asks for the new shoes,
he’ll show them off to all his friends
when he comes back to school.
When he comes back to school,
his parents will complain
to all administrators that his papers
are marked late.
The administrators will tell you
that suspensions are excused absences,
so…
He’ll want to turn in his papers…
with all As.
You’ll have to fix up your gradebook,
edit all of his mistakes,
and lose sight of why you became a teacher.
When all his grades are fixed,
you’ll notice that he plagiarized
some of his work.
You’ll have to suspend him again.
And chances are, if you suspend him…
he’s going to have to make up his work
and you’re going to have to give in
to the idiocies of our society.
i’m hard-pressed to find
my miles, my mind today,
my ambition to walk down the hall
my muscles are as hard
and weathered
as stones through a storm
it’s only 9:36.
i still have four classes and
a stack of papers choking me
my mind is as scrambled
as the scattered papers
left behind by a class of forty
soon i will change into layers
of cycling clothes, clip in my shoes,
and pedal my way to a better attitude.
in blue marker
print better than mine
are the ordered words
Dry eyes
Quiet voice
Follow Directions
all for the special needs boy
who wants to hold his ribbon
rather than fill out formulas
i sit with the card
in front of my lunch
saying the words to myself
in a mantra that keeps me
from telling them what i really think.
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