Waits near a pile of kids, anyway,
“who keeps putting lizards in Polly Pocket clothes?”
the problem is considered
as they bat at their hair to keep
the breeze from affecting them. Outside
the bell tolls. Something
may be happening,
or the feeling of it—hard to remember
until it’s happening again.
In the mean time the kids must wonder
what to call themselves,
the niggling prettiness of luck or deadpan charity,
what glimpses live inside them and
why they won’t develop
or why they never seem to stop waving
at the great sheaves of preoccupied people,
who spill out of doorways to swell
with the promise of their fullness
and the daily gab,
and hey, sorry, can’t talk right now,
I have to go to secret class.