Monday May 13

On Hiatus

Barbara Ellen Baldwin - Poetry

Barbara Ellen Baldwin is an online book reviewer and vets writing online for finely crafted print journals. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conclave, a Journal Of Character, The Annals Of Internal Medicine, Prick Of The Spindle, and Barnwood. Baldwin is currently studying ASL and teaches privately and online. Baldwin has a current manuscript in progress entitled Feeding the Anxiety Dog.
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Last Weeks of Second Grade: Mrs. Keetly Regrets
 
 
That child in the back chews
the end of one thin braid,
drawing a field of daisies,
knowing the topic is Forests and Birds.
The others fold landscapes properly in half.
Someone brings me twenty-seven
versions of trees, neatly stacked.
The twenty-eighth is loopy
with yellow petals, falling to white.
 
At recess, I cover the walls,
awarding gold seals for symmetry.
I ask the class:
"These m's in the sky? Sparrows?"
Everyone beams: yes, yes.
Relief washes their faces.
 
At sharing time, the children
sing: "Happy Trails," dreaming of Trigger.
James flings his heavy
arm in the air, pleading for rescue:
"I like silver bullets, guns,
and horses falling down," he
calls out, breath loud and raggedy.
The girl in cowgirl clothes
stands, shocking everyone:
"No, No, she shouts:
The animals?
They think it's real!"
 
She hasn't spoken in weeks,
not since I lightly hit her,
standing by the blackboard,
not knowing how
to cut out paper snow.
Not since I held
those bitten nails, so others
could watch and learn.
 
Later, her desk
creaks and creaks
in the quiet room.
She is hunched over
her worn notebook,
erasing, erasing,
during the test.
 
When the children go,
an odd light filters
through watery windows.
Penciled pines and birches seem
to sway in this windless place.
 
The twenty-eighth paper 
has no mistakes.
It's been a fearful year.
That first grade woman?
That Mrs. Bowlin?
She is loved for nothing, nothing,
class after class.
 
I can only fix small things now.
Above her name, I press
six pink and shiny stars.
Below this constellation,
every word has been
crayoned in bright Sierra Rose.
 
 
 
 
Fairchild Suite
 
 
When the madman finally came
to our town, he followed the script,
took up old grievances, his MAK-90,
then called a cab to the hospital,
leaving a 4 cent tip.
 
He found his psychiatrist's name
done in gold on the office door.
He killed that man in mid-sentence.
The patient in her chair survived
because she did nothing. Because
she smiled.
 
He turned next to all those
waiting,
for prescriptions, appointments, or lunch.
Upstairs and downstairs,
he put them in his sight.
A family of five fell one by one,
A nurse he thought he knew
ran blindly into the courtyard,
the Tak Tak Tak of metal
caught up in six parts of her.
 
A security guard riding his bike
into the sun
was thinking of ice cream,
shoelaces, chocolate and beer.
He wheeled right into the story.
 
He watched the wild man scramble
out into the green, lost in fury, still.
He took the shooter down
With one shot from a simple gun.
The son-of-a-bitch
was pronounced guilty and dead,
before his mother
knew he really
wasn't  in Alaska,
waiting for her call.