Poems from S. Alternative School

A poem I wrote for sweet T. One day, I was sitting on the desk lecturing, and the sun was in my face. I considered moving, but the classroom was cold, and the sun felt warm. After a couple minutes, T. put her hand in front of her face and said, "Ms. Kuhne, the light be bouncin' off you and hurtin' my eyes!" I laughed, and asked her if she was calling me white:

I came here, new.

Shining so bright, so white,

It hurt their eyes.

A poem I wrote about a classroom in S. Alternative School. I came home every day coated in chalk:

A podium of milk crates.

Pencils, everywhere pencils.

Air thick with the dust

of Sea Creatures.

Pretty self-explanatory. How I felt about the Bayou last year:

Bayou knows no gravity;

It rises, thick and wet

to pull me under.