THE PRANK IS I’M STILL ALIVE

At my mouse table

I don’t like the way I feel after I talk to her

the prodding into spaces where I fall down

People without stopping

There’s no rule I have to call my mother

I remember her washing my hair in the kitchen sink

There’s a reason an era when running away like Claudia Kincaid made sense

Three of us said at lunch we thought about it or had done it 

If we disappeared our parents would express concern

and reading that book aloud to a classroom made sense

I break a little

from being little

I am often alone

The years keep getting better

all the things I see so clearly now

political heat

similar things not happening

In the blockade or the fantasy of the blockade

If you are too perfect you will never start anything