Her hands dance
across the keys
And I always wonder what she sees:
a forest of silver trees
or a frosted moonscape
of sparkling craters,
the perfect place
for her music to soar
above the galaxy?
Con Forza
With force
Mary
My piano teacher is pushing me
to audition for the Talent Show.
It’s like a conspiracy,
everyone wanting me to play.
He says:
It’s a shame not to share
your music with the world.
It’s like a painter
never showing her art
or a poet never reading her words.
My mom says:
Why did we pay for all those lessons
if you won’t play in public?
My dad says:
Listen to your mom!
I say:
When I’m not playing
parts of me drift, like notes
lifted off the bars, floating
aimlessly in space.
Isn’t it enough that I feel best
when I’m playing, that playing
makes me feel most like the me
I was meant to be?
Isn’t that worth your money, Mother,
or would you rather see me
in pieces, lost, with nothing
to make me whole?
Lucky
Stacey
I know I’m not Mark’s first girlfriend,
but I think he likes me best.
The rest were all too clingy, always wanting
him to call and take them to the mall.
They didn’t understand that Mark
needs to keep moving
and only he can decide
where he wants to go.
Sure, he wants you beside him
but you’ve got to be willing
to bend in and buckle up
and put up with his moods,
ride them out with him,
no matter where they lead.
Sometimes, we drive all the way
to the border, where
he’ll park and stare
as though he’s plotting
his escape.
At moments like that
you have to sit still, keep
your mouth shut and wait
until he’s worked it out.
Then he comes back
and sees you
and remembers
how lucky he is
to have you there,
all pretty and sexy
in your tightest clothes.
You can feel him shift
toward you, his eyes
glossy, his pants straining.
You’ve waited hours for that look
because it makes you feel
a thousand feet tall,
even though he still hasn’t
said a single word.
Just Because
Christopher
My friends tell me
to forget it.
Girls like her
don’t go out
with guys
like me.
They say it
like I have
a disease,
Just because
I’m shy
like them
And good at school
and belong to
the AV Club
like them
And have acne
like some
of them.
None of those things
mean I don’t
have feelings.
Even Galileo
knew that all things
fall at the same rate
Whether they’re
light as
feathers
Or heavy
as stone,
like me.
Social Action Group
Annabelle
I’ve been seeing signs for their meetings
since school started: kids
at sewing machines, kids
outside tin shacks, kids
weaving carpets, kids
bent over in fields; underneath,
the words Do you care?
Yesterday, I finally found the nerve
to go to the meeting
in the small room
with no windows
behind the boiler
in the basement.
Mr. Dawe wears cargo pants
with a hundred pockets,
sandals, and t-shirts
with slogans like Ban the bomb
and Make love, not war, and
his gray hair is a skinny ponytail
down his back.
When I walk in, he says
Welcome, comrade,
and the five kids sitting
in a circle on the floor
laugh and say hello
and I have never felt
so welcome in my life.
Mr. Dawe talks with his hands,
waving them around
like he is conducting
an orchestra; we are
the musicians, rehearsing
a score, making plans
for a booth on child labour
and the war in Iraq.
Why not plant two flowers
with one seed? Mr. Dawe asks
and I think how, if my mom
had said that, she’d have used
the one about killing birds
with a single stone.
These kids
Mr. Dawe
These kids turn me on—Hey,
get your minds out of the gutter!
I mean in an intellectual way:
the way they think, the things they care about.
It’s not all Hollywood superstars
and fashion and fast cars.
Well, at least not for these committed kids
who come to the weekly meetings in that crap room.
If the school really cared about education, as in
the Latin educere, to lead, they’d put their money
Where their proverbial mouths are and give us some cash
for a better space and a computer.
They just don’t get that these kids might be
the Kings, the Ghandis, the Mandelas, the Suu Kyis
Of their generation; it has been a complete
privilege for me to work alongside them.
I’d rather be with them and their energy and spirit
than sit through protocol and curriculum meetings
With my colleagues. Some of them are more burnt
out than lava and haven’t had a new thought
In their heads since they rolled off the assembly line
at college, diplomas in their fists, forty years ago.
It’s like there’s some fascist policy up there that says
IF IT TURNS KIDS ON, IT’S GOT TO BE BAD FOR THEM.
When John Lennon said, Whatever gets you through the night
he meant night as a metaphor for any hard place, like school.
I know that. These kids know it. Why not get through
AND change the world in the process?
MY STEEL SHELL
Mark
When I drive to school
I always hope
people are standing around
&n
bsp; because no one can help
looking at my yellow Mini.
It’s bright as the sun,
speedy and slick.
I weave it in and out
of those concrete pillars
meant to slow cars down
on school property.
We’re supposed to brake,
but I just twist around them
smooth as a snake.
Sometimes people clap,
but not the principal.
When she sees me
she calls me in
and gives me
a lecture
on safety
on being responsible
on how a car isn’t a toy
but a machine that has the power
to kill, as if I don’t know that.
She sounds like my mother
warning me about speed:
Haven’t I lost enough already?
Mom always says.
Don’t they know that when I’m in
my yellow Mini I’m safe,
impervious?
The car is my thick skin
and when I’m
in it nothing,
nothing,
can sink
in.
My Dad
Annabelle
I can’t help wondering what he
was like, or is like, because he’s not dead,
he’s just not here, in my life.
My mom tells me I don’t need
to know him, that knowing him
wouldn’t change who I am.
But how does she know that? It’s like
the one about the tree falling in the forest
I guess I’m kind of like the tree, only
my father isn’t around to see me.
Maybe I’d grow differently if he were.
My mom grew up near here, so I might
have passed my dad a million times,
maybe even handed him a flyer at the mall.
If I did, I wonder what he did with it: did he read it,
or ditch it? Is he the type of guy who cares about things
like child labour? Does the world keep him up at night
Or is he the type of guy who only cares about hockey
and football, watching TV with a beer in one hand,
a cigarette in the other, swearing at the screen?
Either way, I’d like to know because it might help me
figure myself out, it might help me see what kind
of life I’ll have when I’m older, not that I expect
To become exactly like my mom or dad, but
it would be nice to know that I inherited some traits,
instead of feeling everything about me starts at zero.
Ostinato
Persistent
Mary
I hear her, tip-toeing
down the stairs,
crouching
In the stairwell, like
an intruder,
trying
To figure out what’s keeping me
down here for
hours.
It’s like she thinks I can’t
hear her
breathing
Or scratching her hair, or tapping
her fingers on
her knees
Like she’s a human metronome
decoding my music
in the dark.
Things She Doesn’t Want to Know
Annabelle
My mom says:
Why don’t you hang out
with Stacey anymore?
You used to be over there all the time
and now, nothing. Has something happened
that you’re not telling me about?
She thinks I put Stacey off by telling her
things she doesn’t want to know
about the clothes she wears.
As if I would.
I don’t even speak to Stacey anymore,
but I can’t help it if she reads our posters.
It’s the type of info my mother thinks
I should keep to myself because
it won’t win me any friends.
My mom says Mr. Dawe is a leftover hippie.
She can tell by the fluff between his toes
that he shows off in Birkenstocks, and
by his shirts that never smell clean
but are rumpled and musty.
She says he shouldn’t encourage us to protest
like that in public, that it might harm
our image, prevent us from
getting summer jobs.
I say some things are more important
than money.
The school agrees with my mom
and they’ve told Mr. Dawe not to
take us off school property,
as if we belong to the school, like
the gym mats or desks.
Don’t they know we have
our own free will?
Sure, Mr. Dawe led us there, but now
we are ready to go ahead,
even without him.
Poem
Christopher
I need to send her
a sign to tell
her
How I feel because
until I do
I am
Just some guy she walks by,
blended in,
instead
Of a guy who is bursting
with feeling
for her.
I need to put myself
in her sphere, her
orbit
Like one of
Jupiter’s
small moons.
I could write a poem
comparing her to a
flower,
The perfect rosy petals
of her cheeks
blushing,
The delicate stems of her
fingers waving when
she talks
About things she really
cares about,
fiery
As a rose in full bloom,
each velvet petal
folding
One on top of the other
the way I’d like
to fold
Annabelle
in my
This New Guy
Annabelle
On Saturday, this new guy
shows up and he doesn’t know
how to persist when people
reject the flyer.
I tell him:
You have to
stick it under an arm
or on top of a bag.
You have to
act like it’s the most
important paper ever printed.
You have to
push when pushing
is against your nature.
You have to
smile even when someone
is cursing you.
You have to
stay hopeful even when you see
your flyers crushed
Under the wheels
of a thousand
cars,
Which is not
always easy
to do.
Trying to Change the World
Christopher
I can’t get the hang
of standingand handing
out the flyers.
I feel I am
being rude
when I say:
Do you know this store
buys from suppliers
who use sweatshops?
I can’t stand
seeing people’s eyes
hit the ground,
or the way they
tuck in their chins
and skulk through
the doors,
some grasping
the flyers, others
waving them away
like wasps.
I try to study
Annabelle
to see how she
does it, her technique
as smooth as honey,
always pleasant,
like she is handing
out candy
and not bad news.
Once or twice she smiles
at me, nods
to encourage me,
and it makes the day
worthwhile,
makes me glad
to be standing
in the October cold
trying to change
the world.
Watching her flick
her hair
out of her eyes
and blow the tips
of her fingers
to keep warm
makes me want
to wrap
myself around her
like the fuzzy blanket
my mom bought
at this store
last week.
At the end of the day,
frozen, we all stop off
for hot chocolate.
When Annabelle
blows a hole into
the whipped cream,
a dab of it clings
to her upper lip.
I want
to lick it off.
The Truth
Annabelle
My mom says people don’t always want
to know the truth.
She says if everyone knew the truth
about everything
In the world, no one would ever
get out of bed.
But what if knowing just a piece
of the truth
Changes one little thing that a person
does or thinks?
Like the challenge Mr. Dawe
just gave me
For our Hallowe’en info-booth
in the lobby.
This is one piece I’ve discovered
so far:
Factories in Bangladesh
are full of kids whose fingers
bleed. They sleep
on planks in dorms,
their stomachs rumbling.