POEM A DAY – January 7

Pulled a line from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, ‘Building the World We Believe In’

In second grade, I remember…
After Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s ‘Building the World We Believe In’

The classroom was on the second floor
ascending the giant staircase, twenty-kids wide at least
my stomach always scrambling at my heels
anxiety wrapped around my ribs like honey

I slogged into the cubby closet:
this slender mini-room the length of the class
thick wooden lockers like an oversized set of cupboards
at the top goes the lunch box

In the torso goes the coats and mitts and hat
boots and outside shoes like detritus at the bottom
it was so very hot in the cubby
various shaped bodies releasing morning energies

Voices like weather fronts…but I was quiet
my mind an opera of worry in need of suppression
beyond the cubby, the classroom with the back wall
not brick but windows like a new painting each hour

As the sun spread up and over and light played paintbrush
under Ms. L’s long-throated teachings – how tall she was
a thin bird in turtlenecks and brown skirts ending mid-tibia
I waited for the read-aloud when my arm would shoot up

My hand a tight star, my voice gathered in anticipation
if I didn’t get chosen to lift the words off the page
a nano piece of me flaked and fell into the orange shag carpet
and the honey on my ribs hardened to anger

Thank you!