#98

http://www.eliteskills.com/c/14110

I’m glad to see that the élève (student) is publishing. “He’ll be, with luck, there always,” is not as positive a pronouncement as it might seem. The place he’s working is second-rate after all. There’s a touch of snide to it, which Henry’s endlessly challenging blackface conscience calls him on. Look, we can’t all be superstars. Why can’t we all the same be? In a sense, we are, as long you set talent, fame, health, race, gender, nationality, intelligence, and money aside.

Here’s a snapshot poem I wrote some years ago. Like that élève B. mentions, as a kid I was “slack a little,” in the classroom of social skills, as important a learning as math, history, science. As I grew, I took that kind of learning on, overcame the mediocrity (I hope!) that B. accuses his student of. A bit of youthful anger can be a great motivator.

 

I Hate You So Much I Could Catch a Butterfly

She had to say it.

The notes my friend taped to the mirror
In the girls’ bathroom

“M____ loves K___”

Cornered her.

Rather than stumbling at lunch

Through the whatever it was

Boys talked to girls about

I was out

In the fields with a net.

My tongue never worked

In front of those blond pigtails

The freckles and braces.

Do I remember pink and yellow ribbons in her hair? 

But—oh! the tiger swallowtails’

Velvet and butter,

Sulfurs sunny as yellow cake, edged in pink,

The great spangled fritillary

Teasing from teasel to thistle

Ravishing in the way

Darwin and Wallace would have understood.

I cornered their insect panic,

The flittering bits of popcorn

Crushed them

Between my fingertips,

To mount them later at home.

And no talking.

KZ