Reading Edith Hamilton, 9th Grade Poem by Corinna McClanahan Schroeder

Girls splayed by boars
and bulls and swans.
A hoof jammed
into the small of a back,
a beak tightening
around a neck.

Girls sealed inside trees.
One girl, even, pulled
into a stranger's car

and the mother left behind,
poppies wilting.

That winter, between bells,
upperclassmen boys
jostled me in the halls.

Their smell sharpened
to musk.
Their shoulders spread,
eyes dark as dried blood.

And that ache
in the pit of me.

In the parking lot,
every day at 2:55, engine rev
and muffler breath,
tires peeling out.

I stood on the sidewalk,
coat zipped high.