For the photo, you asked me to smile.
I smiled. Lips tight, lipstick ruddled.
Make-upped to cover the blue,
the blackened wound seeded inside me.
By you, S. Photographer. Parent leader.
You bear-trapped me in false tales,
signed petitions, you authored.
Despite duplicity. I grinned.
Eviscerated, gored. Behind me,
a bulletin board nailed with paper bits
of a vanishing school career.
You were a whirl of forgiveness
at the photo shoot—
Turn to the right,
nice. Look at me.
Smile. Yes.
You look beau-ti-ful.
And what did you gain, from all your fussing?
A better school? Attention? What?
I need your answer.
Why the turn around? Suddenly?
The plaque says, Best Teacher,
Best Principal in the Universe.
My face floating above your words.
*
Tonight, it pours, rain invisible
on my window, but it beats, beats.
Pollen rot along the ledge.
Leaves bruised and fallen still cling
to my glass. Another storm
rolls down the east coast.
.