Writing Your Name In The Upper Right Hand Corner Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

writing your name in the upper right hand corner
of a page that is gone,
the notebook too.countless workbooks.

did winters cover them? so many winters.
where has all the old homework gone, then?
bonfires? out to sea?

did children overseas make paper airplanes
from it? origami animals?
or the younger ones cut snowflake silhouettes?

old tests, mimeographed.
marked with a red pen.what happened to them?
for that matter, where did they put all

the red pens? report cards! ! !
A minuses.nervous making math problems.
construction paper fiascos.

maple leaf stencils.
tissue thin and cherished, number two pencils.
whole kingdoms of tracing paper.

attendance rolls.
your soul back then.
so apple bright reading:

great expectations.
the frost on the lawn
when you took the bus

anticipating

so early into the school year;
learning to disappear.

mary angela douglas 30 september 2015