Poem: Poor Student Apologies

Poor Student Apologies

Words by Maya White-Lurie
Image by Amanda Chisholm
QuailBellMagazine.com

Tapping keys create poems far faster
than papers. Forgive me, Dean, dear poet
the phones at two jobs will not answer
themselves. Do you know how often I must rest
my pen to let grievances in my ear?
People say I am the crazy one, picking yellow leaves
in autumn, begonias in my hair for spring,
a vulture dries her feathers in the sun
wings spread wide. Song birds fly South
in the winter but I must trudge North instead.
I spill coffee on each day's shirt.
Flannels with stripes overlapping.
A road map with no direction.
Books with empty pages and verses I
cannot understand, but fifteen pages due
about the hundreds I've read,
Morrison would laugh at my troubles.
Hemingway would say drink more gin.
Have I told you my brother believes in Jesus?
He thinks he will fly in the rapture,
that I'll just burn with the rest.
The click click click of fingernails on a desk.
Frogs boil slowly in big metal pots, never knowing
they're cooking. I suppose I’ll leave my light sweater
at home, and I’ll wait to eat lunch
because I hear frog legs taste like chicken.

#Unreal #Poem #Poetry #Student #PoorStudentProblems #College #Work #TheStruggle #AdviceFromPoets

Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.