by Abigail E. Meyers
Our task begins
with giving order to the chaos created
by poverty, illiteracy, apathy,
the too-cool kids that make bad parents
or good parents with a too-cool world
to fight, exhausted by the battle
with neighbors, government, money,
broken glass, broken hearts, broken homes, broken lives—
this is where we begin.
We step in,
dressed more sharply than we’d like,
speaking more sharply than we’d like,
issuing rules and goals,
shaking our heads, straightening lines,
bleeding our wallets and minds
right from the start
to stanch the flow from our hearts
as long as we can
before this newest collection
of dreamers, criminals, fighters, angels—
children, all—works their way in
before we can begin
to bring them to order
and teach them to teach themselves,
restore them to the restoration
of the universe, raise up a million saviors,
prop them up with stickers and pencils,
form them into wobbly queues, love them, love them.
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