Afterschool

I am in the classrom
Below me
four feet high
stands a selection
for the future
of the world

Henry is an artist
always crying
He sometimes sits
and glooms and sometimes
sobs as he considers the implications of his situations
but Henry is always able to shake it off
ready to try again
for there is always
another beginning

It is children wisdom

But there is a growth
-a tilt away
when raffish Willa
comes with something to confide
and then decides to my adult dismay
that she’s gotta keep it confidential:

I’ll tell you in a million years

she says

If we’re buried
In the same graveyard,
I’ll whisper it to you.

And later I caught myself
preaching to Max about how hate begets hate
unless there is a choice
an effort to rise above
and I thought of how true it was
that I was definitely improvising
making shit up
and I was believing myself
believing in eternities