Three Poems about Childhood

 

“Get lost!”

The whole world seemed to say

From the kids at school 

Who don’t count rocks into categories 

Like I do

To the men who didn’t love me

For the answers I couldn’t give,

And nearly everyone else;

What a relief

After years 

To say

“Absolutely”

Visiting with my fonder friends, 

The shag bark hickory that grew

Below the barn halfway to the ditch

The singing squirrels told the news

A woodchuck wobbled by further off

As I sat by the skeleton rock

And felt safe

Last kid in line for school lunch usually hopes

They haven’t run outta hotdog buns

Or cake

Before she gets there. 

She’s last in line because she doesn’t like noise

And lunch is noisy

She doesn’t like bullies

And lunch is full of them

She doesn’t know what to do with the recess after lunch 

She will try to be invisible 

She realizes there is something obvious that other kids find;

A defect, a wrongness

As real as weather and heavy as stone

She can’t find in the mirror. 

She squeezes eyes shut, wishes for home,

But it’s too far from here

To get to by wishes.

Resignedly

She’ll have to take the bus. 

It seems so useless

To be lost in past stupidities

When the world is starving and self destructing

But here I sit

Thinking about 1987. 

What a waste of neurons

When I could be doing anything at all

In the here and now. 

Every new day emerges as a chance

To do a powerful amount of kind things-

Here, now