Poem Thursday - On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at South High
One of the few many advantages of having two teens at home, is that you get exposed to poetry, certainly more than we’d otherwise in our day jobs. As some folks take to eating ice-cream out of the box, under certain situations, I find myself driven to my shelf of English prose and poetry under those same circumstances. So I reckoned as I discover newold poems why not share those with friends and folks out there. One of my all time favorites, Thirteen is no age at all, I have shared before in these pages. So one way to discover more poems was to commit to a week poem post - so with that in mind, here’s my first Poem Thursday (with a hat tip to Fred Wilson’s MBA Mondays)
On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at South High
by D.C. Berry
Before
I opened my mouth
I noticed them sitting there
as orderly as frozen fish
in a package.
Slowly water began to fill the room
though I did not notice it
till it reached
my ears
and then I heard the sounds
of fish in a aquarium
and I knew that though I had
tried to drown them
with my words
that they had only opened up
like gills for them
and let me in.
Together we swam around the room
like thirty tails whacking words
till the bell rang
puncturing
a hole in the door
where we all leaked out
They went to another class
I suppose and I home
where Queen Elizabeth
my cat met me
and licked my fins
till they were hands again.
