Saturday, November 29, 2008

"Classroom 1A," 9/9/08

Thumbtacks pressed into a wall
stare out at me like multicolored eyes,
dig into the sheetrock like empty, grasping claws.
What news has been pierced
by the sharp frankness of a tack?
What construction-paper projects
with paste oozing from between the layers,
what sensationalist headlines
clipped for educational reasons?--
BAT-BOY DISCOVERED IN JERSEY or
PRINCIPAL FALSIFIES TEST SCORES.
Maybe notes
and memos,
mysterious little ascetic scrawlings
passed without a sound.
Or maybe a life-preserving device
once hung importantly there,
such as a fire evacuation route
labeled in imperative red marker.
YOU ARE HERE! --->
O
r, perhaps, a displaced artist
stumbled thankfully upon this canvas
and arranged the tacks to represent
the decadence of modern culture,
or an astronomer navigated them
into the constellation of Taurus
hoping a kindred spirit would notice fondly.

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