Bracha K. Sharp
A CALCULATION
Time now to go back again,
if only to scoop
out what may perch
in the maw of consternation;
smoothing the stones of memory,
understand,
calibrates weight differently,
spreads them flat, like river stones thrown deep, then
left to rise.
Neuronal fires, pulsing to the
surface, souvenirs of time—
and I,
watching the numbers
burst there on the blackboard
now,
as if then—
understand that chalk can be stone, if
angled through the narrow lens of expectation.
Or how the wait between the final
chalk stroke
and someone's answer becomes the electrical line that
fear clothes me in.
and I, rigid in
terror,
quiet and straight. Behind the tan desk, sitting on the blue chair that
holds me.
And the clock ticking.
Here, I will also mention my heart and
losing its cadence. And the overhead light buzzing
and the smell of chalk dust. (Or how the blackboard was really green.)
but you didn't need to know all of that.
Really, I wanted to say that every day,
for forty-five minutes, I sat there practicing
to be a statue—
How I held the walled symmetry of my brain and
rocked it, shh, shh, until we dissolved into the floor and boldly
left the room,
shook in the bathroom stall.
And emerged, running into the mass of students, bumping
along with my friends. After that, we might have had lunch.
I don't remember.