Setting Up A Classroom During A Pandemic Perhaps I’ll wipe down some textbooks, hardcover ones like Bones, Dog Man, Diary of A Wimpy Kid the ones kids read over and over, the ones they will protest being put in quarantine jail before someone else can read it again. Cleanliness, distance and time. Spacing between desks.
Restless night, I lie awake, jitters for what tomorrow brings Morning rush, a bite of food, not nearly enough to sink in A new dress and shoes, my book bag full, but I’m left empty still this time Will they see me as I want, or will I just blend in? New faces smiling, others
Essential Work What work is mine? Offering my full cornucopia, cut from leg of sacrificial lamb? Allowing my rounded fruit to be cupped squeezed, peeled bruising concealed? Resurrecting the ole iron lung, its dependable clatter, the work of being essential noise for those needing reminders of the sweetness of breathing on our own without effort.
From Pyre to Ash: A Teacher’s Duty I’m sorry but I can’t write a poem about going back to school. My pandemic mind is a closet with twenty years of chaos. Unkempt as it is, everything will fall. My job is to hoard piles of artifacts – the art of facts: the tests, markers and
shattered no one looks at her as she walks to school uniformed, books clutched to her chest passing cars, pedestrians see past her through her she is unremarkable she is scenery. each step to her destination an effort not to turn and run sheer force of will her only glue to hold together her plain
fledge each first day of school we stood beside you waiting for the yellow bus to take you there. we knew you would return our ache temporary. no more busses stop here today we stand beside your car packed with everything that is you this place no longer serves your dreams we each whisper unspoken
A is for Apple Anomalies i) He surprises her with bruised apple poised center stage on her classroom desk hopes the forbidden fruit ferments stirs his classmates into hysterics. Mirror, mirror, in his hand! This university student with gelled raven hair. His mischievous grin, gold-tipped and wide like an unzipped backpack when he sees her.
Uproar is now accepting submissions for the September 2020 theme. The next theme is “Back To School.” A very hot topic these days! There are many ways to approach this theme: pieces about going back to school, back to work, back to routine pieces about childhood memories of school days or childhood in general pieces about