Back to School, 2001
Because the news is already old
by the time I read it
in the morning newspaper
and the commute too short
to bother with radio,
I dress in the absolutely wrong
color: Fuchsia, a color
frequently misspelled, seemingly
artificial, but in truth
spectacular in nature
and in the silent flowers
on my skirt, innocently
purchased on a steep sale
the summer before the fall
when I enter a classroom,
as I have every fall
since I was a child. Only now
I am a teacher without knowledge
of what my students …
