Year of Writing 156. Poem edit.

6/5/12

The kid with the sullen eyes always sits right up front
And stares at me like I’m responsible for everything
That’s ever gone wrong in his whole fucked up life

When I talk to him I soften the edges of my words
With impersonality but I can see him still flinch
With every syllable like a three-legged dog hearing
The sound of a car horn blaring

He slams his forehead into the desk and stays that way.


The smart girl, she’s bored again.
She’s already finished
What we were supposed to do tomorrow
I’m already finished what we were supposed to do tomorrow
She says.
Raise your hand
I say
So she raises her hand and flaps it for a while like a
Dying seagull
Then she holds it with her other hand
To emphasize how incredibly difficult it is
To do such a menial task as raising her hand.

Yes
I say
I’m bored.
You’re smart
I say
Invent a cure for boredom.
She sucks her teeth so hard the sullen eyed kid lifts up his head. 
She doesn’t think it was funny.

The kid with the slayer t-shirt sits next to the kid with gold fronts on his teeth
They look at eachother
And for a second I can see a smile play at the corner of each of their mouths. 
But then the slayer kid goes back to drawing dragons
Scowling at the talons
And the gold fronts kid shakes his dreds
Flashing me the remainder of that golden grin.
He raises his hand.

Yes
 I say
BALLS
He says.

Did you just say balls?

Yeah.  He says,
pulling his lips as far as he possibly can
from his teeth so I can appreciate
the full splendor of his 125.00 grill.

Balls

You know I have to call your mom now, right?
I ask, rhetorically

I call right then and there
You know your son just said balls as loud as he could in class?
I ask.

The entire room hears her five minute rant
As I have to hold the phone from my ear to
Make the words coming from it sound intelligible.

“And his brother’s in the hospital!” 
I catch, semi-screamed through the phone.
I’m terribly sorry
I say
But I’m not exactly sure why that makes it OK for him to scream “balls”
You’re lucky he didn’t bank you – she says
I expect the gold fronts kid to agree
But he just looks embarrassed,
Not even a glimmer from his lips

Yeah I guess so,
I say.

And hang up. 

The slayer kid hands me his dragon.
It’s eating what could be either a horse or a walrus.
It says To Mr. Gardner
In horribly rendered old English letters –
Only the e and the r are missing.
“I ran out of room” he says
it’s cool, I say -
It’s beautiful.