My student, late to class

Candice Kelsey

for Kristina

She tosses herself
into my classroom
a few seconds late
not so much a beach ball
as a fistful of dust
colorful and airborne
a quasi-Nepalese celebration.

She asks permission to share
the magical reason
for her tardiness:

A mountainous neon
floral print bean bag
labeled FREE
on the curb of 23rd
she could not refuse.

And while I listen
to this flutter of youth
in all its wild tensions
between task and surprise,
I slowly close my lap top
to forgo today’s PowerPoint
lesson on the beauty of poetry.

 
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CANDICE KELSEY's poems have appeared in such journals as Poet Lore, The Cortland Review, Hobart Pulp, and Wilderness House -- and her work has been incorporated into multiple 3-D art installations. She has been accepted into the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Virginia Quarterly Review's Writer's Conference. A high-school English teacher of 19 years' standing, she lives in Los Angeles and serves as a fiction reader for The New England Review.