wonderland

i mean it's not calm but the first five minutes

of chorus when everyone is cascading in

through the too-small doorway are my favorite & we,

always the first to sit down,

cluster & converse about

& it was the tensest last period class I've ever been in. Well, for me, at least,

and maybe only for me - when the announcement came on to secure

the school, no going outside, continue as normal,

I am a poet. I take the words and I turn them on their heads until the juice runs out. It is red and sweet, like strawberries. I sit cross-legged on lilypads, watching meaning watercolor itself onto the pond. I rust like clockwork in the rain.