Best Schoollight Poems
Check clock
A white light burst expanding across the sheet
Blue ruled lines blur to nothing
Clear against the paper.
I can’t see them, or the graphite symbols
But I know they are there.
I wrote them
Another failed attempt at grasping attention.
The professor’s voice cuts through the moment
High pitched, harmonious
Her accent harmonizing the mathematical enlightenment
A series of statements strung together
Punctuated by silences
An expectation of some sort of outpouring of understanding.
After a pause, she resumes
Leaving another potential for exposure averted for now.
The green marker fades against the white board
It is also putting forth a minimal effort.
The chapter and section offer a temporal landmark
A quantifiable measurement of how far I am behind.
Another pause
Silence
She gazes across the board
A battlefield of green example problems and red functions
Even she is confused by the carnage.
A mathematical expression lays stunned
But not dead
Suddenly, a light flickers, shining from behind her eyes
A moment of triumph.
She resumes, renewed
While I fade farther into the back
Attempting to become one with the off beige wall.
My mind is blank, almost clear
So much so that I can feel the blood rush through my veins
I try to trace a single cell through my body
But I realize I don’t remember that much detail on the circulatory system.
My adventure aborted, my gaze returns to the clock
Check clock
I am only interested in a line of pi, 180°
As in 6:45pm
Time to leave.