I never went to their houses,
though I was invited. It was too much, the ash
of the mountains, lesson plans, catching
the bus; we took a bus each morning up
the hill for a quarter & I felt
I saw the whole earth.
Once, a student made me cry from anger.
Later that day we rode the same bus. I wore
my red face like a jewel. I was dumb & proud
to catch him staring.
Meanwhile, he was going hungry.
It was a sharp summer. I was always
cold & sunburnt, sicker than the strays
who howled on our streets.
I hated the kids & their sticky hands.
I don’t think I helped a single one.
I read to them from Charlotte’s Web,
asked them questions. What is the name
of the pig? Why is Charlotte sad?
Juan came to school with bleach burns on his
brown cheeks, scabbed & skinny from the start.
He wasn’t sad, but he could see why Charlotte
was. Once we sat in the dustblown yard
with notebooks. Lists, I told them. Write everything there is.
They weren’t bad; they noticed tricks of light, bottle
caps, trash. At recess they dug up handfuls
of petunias planted by the school staff. For
you, they said. I wore
them in my hair. Miriam gave me her purple
gorilla, which lived mostly in her mouth.
I took it home with me by mistake.
The book was pretty good.
They all fell still to listen while the words
jammed thick in my throat. Some pig, we
said together. Some pig.
Ariel Kaplowitz was born in Michigan in the spring. She is the winner of the Academy of American Poets Award and the Virginia Voss Memorial Award, and she has had work appear in magazines including Dunes Review and The 3288 Review.