Miss

Eat your feelings, but also sip the wine of what will be.
Notice the fine lace of veins beneath the surface
of a small boy's fleshy cheeks. Eat these too, and
eat the extra flesh that settles over your bones
which you feel when you bend to grab a hallpass
as it flutters downwards to the floor.

Eat the ink that won't wash from your fingers.
Indelible. For a moment let your wrinkles out,
then let them find you again. Miss, Miss.
Take off your hat please. Take off your jacket.
Miss, Miss: You know my name. Please use it.
Wring the tone out of your voice. Let it soak the floor.

Close your eyes and travel through that capillary
vine of wine-red veins, artwork in a small boy's face.
Your student. Someone's son. A stranger to you.

Eat the hat and eat the jacket. Eat your schadenfreude
at this strange child's ineptitude and eat the secrets
in his cheeks. Eat the blueness of the walls,
and let your fingers be black with felt-tipped pen.

With your black-tipped fingers pull the folds out from
your forehead. Touch your cheeks. Let your face be stained.