The young pale-skinned red-headed English teacher
(the thin one other teachers complained about for breastfeeding
under a blanket at the faculty meeting,
the one who inferred my fourteen-year-old secrets from my writing portfolio and kept them quiet)
blows her nose, how she weeps as we
write for the fifty minutes until the bell jars us awake.
Every so often I look up to her silhouette at the black chalkboard,
did she know someone in New York in those clouds of smoke and
panic and terror and frenzy, coughing up their lungs until there were no alveoli left?
It takes years for the young to understand the pain of their elders
Time passed and the bleeding, the amputees, the horror
etched into their faces like rushing rivers that make a canyon
echo, oh, Boston, we flirted for a mere few days before your streets
charmed me, and I loved your chic quaintness even post-heartbreak,
and this stomach weathered enough since New York to sink
and burn and spill its acid from my eyes.
It takes years for the young to understand the pain of their elders
I remember her encouraging handwriting
the wide cursive letters, friendly but elegant,
the angled imperfection of the stem of the "d."
Twelve years have taught me the depths of her love for
strangers.
It takes years for the young to understand the pain of their elders
--
prompt: Rules, Schmules
"Experiment with a poetic form. Break all the rules! Not sure where to start? Check out this list of forms: http://bit.ly/3JIt9K"
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