Anything for a smile, I thought, on
my first day at the new school—
A crow sat on the window sill
and scavenged in my head
while I remembered
all the friends on a faraway planet
with anger and envy;
in the daydream, we played
soccer; the goalie stood at
the corner of my eye, his body,
a sweltering mass of tension.
Someone kicked the ball so hard
that it flew above his net,
beyond the knoll, tearing
through the realm of imagination
and into the classroom like
some deus ex machina.
Just as I was envisioning
the chaos that would prevail
and my new classmates’ shocked faces,
a piece of chalk struck me below the ear,
in a rude and brutal awakening.
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