Suck marrow
from what's been given -
it is never enough.
Scream when
platitudes pelt you
with
soggy righteousness.
Love is given
on paper plates
like store-bought cake.


---
Putting together poetry books for 3rd and 4th grade classes. I'm excited about searching out embroidery floss and an awl (or a nail from a hardware store, and a flat rock.) The kids will lace their books together tomorrow. We revise today! Some kids say "I don't want anything in the book." I ask again, "I'm alright," a boy says, as though I offered a second helping of green beans. I say everyone will get a copy. "I don't want one," says one girl. Three kids in middle school turned away their copies of our book. "I'm stupid," says the 4th grade boy who asked the earth to teach him the cleverness of the jaguar with its camoflage. He used the word "camoflage." He comes up with five more poetry lines, with me taking dictation. I am determined the book will have work from every child, not only the girls. The boys resist, but the teacher and the aide sit one on one, encouraging, taking dictation, like me. Each 4th grader turns in at least one poem. Some are excited about them. Maybe even proud.

MY NAME

My name begins with low
though it knows how to sing.
My name is old as the agora
it has an evanescent aura.
Its ephemeral glow is green
as emeralds or lilac leaves.

My name lives in pink nail polish
in the back of my childhood closet.

It ends in satisfied's ah.
It won't answer to "Laurie".
My name always wins at tetherball.

Do not say it with irritation
or it will ignore you.

--

Poetry at a high school -
three English classes
one creative writing
two social studies
and one culinary arts.

We sniffed spices
and sat with artichokes
we took notes, wrote odes
and tomorrow we'll eat
the artichokes steamed
with drawn butter.

We'll read Laurie Colwin's
"Wonderful Lentil Soup"
chapter from the second
Writer in the Kitchen
and eat mulligatawny stew
and write poems.
Brilliant! What luck!

As fate would have it a spate of addle-pated accountants descended
willy-nilly through the skylight and removed the good silver.
And so we begin today a little less brightly than might be.

And so we begin today
Ferndale coffee place
and then to school
where those who haven't gone to state
or haven't found a parent or friend
to carpool with to watch
or aren't staying home
since there'll be a dearth of kids
so how is it worth going?
will I hope say I quote
"I can't even hate this."
As an eighth grader said yesterday.

Happy whatever you do today
may someone not hate it.