March 2021

1

Standing outside
staring at a tree
gentles our eyes

We cheer
to see fireflies
winking again

Where have our friends been
all the long hours?
Minds stretching

beyond the field
become
their own skies

Windows   doors
grow more
important

Look through a word
swing that sentence
wide open

Kneeling outside
to find
sturdy green

glistening blossoms
under the breeze
that carries us silently

2

And...

“That kid is weird,” says
the teacher, flipping her shining hair.
“I don’t know where he’s at.”
Indeed, he is quiet
in the way of a giraffe:
ears tuned to something we can’t hear.
He turns his sleepy eyes on me—
chocolate brown
with long, extraordinary lashes—
as I...