THE CLASSROOMS

I teach myself in outline haunting my own childhood in classrooms of dirty
children that smelled of snot and tears and wet feet in winter catching spitballs and
chalk
and a storm of childhood diseases while a lifeless bag of asafoetida hung around
my neck
kept to keep me free from all contagion and while I stank with safety
and loneliness.

We are
Enclosed by the walls between us by the chemistry of the dead spaces we share
smelling naïve and plastic safe and unspeakable
and true
they will not speak.