In-School Suspension

Looking between the cracks

She was rhythm with ringlets

daring girl

a dynamo

inside denim leggings

mischievous and head-on bold

eyes lined in black noir

hot sauce on a stormy night.

“What’s that sub’s name, Miss Brussel Sprouts?”

No, Miss Tight Pants

Instead, I composed a direct, curt smile.

Drifting from side to side in

a room of square desks in rows

defined by a square system

shedding pedagogy like a pit viper

snaking through unsettled territory

“Know what he’s got in here? This is where he keeps the bodies…”

She fingers the lock on a gray metal cabinet, the corners of her mouth lifting,

“No, seriously Bro, he puts the bodies in here….”

She is on the No-Fly List

Forty-five minutes, penned up in class

That’s a lot

Her mind fizzes

the sunlight skirts through the windows

bathing her in exuberance

“How many years you been a sub?”

Enough to learn to like Brussel sprouts