“Burned all my notebooks. What good are notebooks? They won’t help me survive.” – Life During Wartime, The Talking Heads
The death count rises from a first-grade class in Connecticut.
My mother is a teacher at an elementary school.
Last week a woman, born the same year as she,
Was struck and killed in front of an elementary school,
About five minutes’ drive from hers.
Beneath my big lonely 1 the denominator is shrinking.
Improvements in life expectancy do little
For me a man already born in 1984.
Ten years ago this fall a father & son
Drove around Washington, D.C.,
Shooting people in front of schools
– Called themselves angels.
I’ve kept the notebook from that time.
What good is there in reading what I wrote?
Could I make something of whatever
Appeal to G-d I made.
I’ve got loose lines, like,
“Blessed be G-D who causes bread to rise,”
Or “we have modest demands: wash your hands”
Recently orphaned & looking for a poem.
but what are the chances they’ll get through?
Jeff Blackman 