after school, waiting on stone benches
it’s the bustling, the huff and puff
plus the sodium exhaustion
colloquialisms buzz buzz
on a hot and humid august afternoon
as the final violent bells turn to chimes in the summer breeze.
stroke of luck, lick the finger,
flip the page.
time is dripping in honey
`
and suddenly, she’s sitting next to me
nitpicking and ranting, wishing, venting
`
i listen, enchanted, to the rhythm
of witticisms and the sad sound of a glass shoe.
`
a windy gust rushes us
and brown grass straws
push each other playfully.
maybe it’s a fallen angel in a dancing mood.
`
But the whistle will never move these three stone benches.
Bridges built between them, spider webbed.
Bright, light eyes, heavy heads like
Bricks that can fly like kites on a string, sitting…
`
`
i sit until the sun is close
to setting, remembering the day,
the dizziness, the lessons
in patience,
the pedestrian conversations,
the dissonance,
the headaches and ridiculous
worries, the urgency — the mayhem!
the turbulence, the stray souls,
the lunch trays, the gray floors,
the war for good grades, the textbooks
and the hunchbacks that they form,
`
and all those halos in the hallway.
