from The Midnight Posse
I’ll read Moth
if I get a hall pass.
I need the nurse,
need a Band-Aid,
need to take my pills.
Can’t last till the bell.
Okay then,
I’ll go to the office.
Why? To turn myself in.
No, I won’t read “all.”
I live in a group home,
I don’t do group talk.
Teacher bad as the judge.
No pass as bad as lock up.
I’ll take in-school suspension.
I want out.
We got a problem!
This class is poison!
Everybody bickering,
how’s a guy to sleep?
Hate this whole f**ken set-up.
Maybe the nurse
got our pills,
we could make it
to the lunch bell.
Okay, I’ll read Moth,
two lines, that’s all.
Then I’ll fly away,
like a moth.
Just want my freedom.
Teacher bad as the judge.
No pass as bad as lock up.
I’ll take in-school suspension.
I want out.
Victoria Garton’s books are Venice Comes Clean (Flying Ketchup Press, 2023), Pout of Tangerine Tango (Finishing Line Press, 2022), and Kisses in the Raw Night (BkMk Press, 1989.) The anthology, From K.C., MO to East St. Lou (Spartan Press, 2022), featured ten of her poems. Recent acceptances are from Cosmic Daffodil, Sangam, Proud to Be, Thorny Locust, and I-70 Review.
Sparks of Calliope 