School

All winter we sat blind, I next to the girl   

who loved her scabs, the blood shields   

her head gave up, her face a sun of blank   

amazement. She drew. This means love:   

a circle with a line through it. More work:   

a cross. More crosses. Ice sloughed   

through fields. Ice river, the pages   

of our notebooks. Outside: limbs and roads   

and wires. Outside cracked with force   

and turning. Our poems filled with salt.   

He took me to his bed.   

The writer never speaks. The writer speaks   

in details, the sateen lining of my coat,   

the star point of tongue kissing. The winter   

speaks in the whip. Runoff nixed   

with ash. I spilt water on my notebook.   

Words went back to ink; paper back   

to ruffle, pulp. You smell like dog, the girl   

said. You will be left like the winter.   

Little sputter in the car’s craw. Little   

crevice in the pavement. Ice reminder.   

He took me to his bed, saying: Ali,   

Ali, tell no one. I told the girl, a sore   

gathering, another skin to pick and worry.