words are known
to gravitate towards graves
and chalkboards, slate
canvases ripe with abecedarian
scratching, billowing dust
floating over the lesson
soaked in stone, students
and warm shovels, and always
the work is present, the spirit
part law, part trick
crosses itself
stepping over the mound
the fresh little mud loaf where
dirty hands perform for answers
and tiny feet shuffle, elementary
festival cake walk theatrics, daring
the lucky one, jumping on twenty-four
to rip open the shredded
shirt, rend his ketchuped guts
and collapse
to the asphalt, shrieking
“t’was the Baptists,
the Baptists have halved me…”
the iced pumpkin muffins
outperform the pastoral
scolding, he nods
off in the back seat, hooked
to death and conjuring
Houdini’s free falling alphabet
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See what you have done: Now I want an iced pumpkin muffin!
ReplyDeleteIf you say so! Such traditions quite foreign to me, but sounds like a good time is had by all.
ReplyDeleteYour Halloween poem is really stunning! I thoroughly enjoyed it! Boo.
ReplyDeleteThis is one I am enjoying reading over and over. The "fresh little mud loaf" is quite the image. I remember my elementary school having cake walks on some special days parents came.
ReplyDeleteIced pumpkin muffins beat a scolding any day!
ReplyDeleteI hope you have enough iced pumpkin muffins, almost everyone will want seconds! :-)
ReplyDelete