I’m a Sharp Shooter   by Nancy Schatz Alton

 

My student says her brain is a place made of boxes, everything that happens

sorted into a box. She dips in stored wealth, decorates

pages with hand-picks treasures from gorgeous open squares.

 

This matches a found cartoon of a brain: three levels with boxes on shelves

that spill memories. Unmet humans connect, sweet energy transfer:

Newly-published cartoonist channels confident 11-year-old girl.

 

The girl’s mother thanks me, her sweet darling loves my brain.

My brain with its gnawed-on cardboard trashed by a gerbil

named Fritz who’s wheel spun in my childhood bedroom.

 

What we chose to remember names us until we pick another box:

Teaching my friend how to ice skate, the one who’d never experience age 14.

Two things: grief expert & ice skater. I skate backwards & push forward.

 

Melting polar ice caps, sharpened blades, wisdom, boxes.

My sixth-grade yearnings, I wrote through everything

until I (narrowly, sweetly) pursued: my hands & 1 clicking keyboard.

 

Grief is a cardinal & tears sprout birdseed.

Words whisper salt water: feelings are contagious.

My brain is made of boxes: I blow every lid off.

3.28.2018