Peter Memorized it With Little Cards Last Night But Can't Remember it in the Morning

by Amy Soricelli

He rides the bus with his hand on his chin -  his thinking hand wrapped around the very end edges
of his face all caught up .
His brain dances underneath his hat.
He whispers words to himself like a song/like a promise over and over
he can spin them in his shoes; he kicks back and forth on the seat.
The bus moves too fast today.
His mother stirring tea around and around and around she said/she said...
"you will do well" her threat stabbing down the buttered bread in his throat
catching itself on the sides of his wasted time; spinning around like a top with its pointy end falling short.
His friends push/shove smiling between red lips/finished breakfasts rumpled
bakery paper between the seats like lost coins.
They smile their easy just-studied smiles deep into the crease in their pants
their shapeless hair mocking him between their lashes.
He has no room for food in the piled-on high blank loss of memory.
Words stapled to his coat like lost boy directions.  Like an immigrant
with papers no one asks to see.
Cannot find the answers between the toes in his new brown boots.
He scrapes off the answers from the window ledge and leans hard against the glass.
Looks for the perfect sentences in the dust on his hands.
Or they might fall from the sky/drop on his shoulders.
Land at his feet.