When homework depended on holidays

I sit peeling Bible Character nametags off desks
and fill 5 grocery bags with 20-some trophies
all concerning honors and academic teams,
and to think grades mattered;

the echo of an empty house deafens
the aging ear,
unfurnished–the original fixtures go up again,
and the light is not quite the same;

tearing wallpaper is tearing flesh
as corpses of unwanted toys pile up on the curb,
suffocating former friends in plastic bags
as letters of puppy love mix with unused catnip,

an unfinished Webelos badge and a few pinewood derby cars sit on
purple mimeograph worksheets and classmates’ Valentines,
10 D.A.R.E. ribbons and an elementary school yearbook rest upon
my rock collection and its dimens [sic].

when homework depended on holidays: Santa’s letters, Thanksgiving spelling tests, and New Years Resolutions.

Unpopular as innocence (thankfully)

I still shiver when I consider sex before my driver’s test,
two years before my first kiss a girl undressed closed
behind a door I wanted to remove,
waiting, a scared little boy,
if she would have dangled herself before my nose, who knows
what I would have followed

crowded with the crowd into locked rooms,
as if taped up doors ever stopped them.
afraid to be forced do anything (or anyone)
to be in control I must be out of popular circles and 7-minute heavens,
being unconventional at high school academic conventions
when they called my name,
I wrote, I wrote, I wrote.