September 22: Poet of the Week, Terry Godbey, "Bully"

I'm back at home.  The bathroom is clean.  My lunch is made.  My son is asleep, and a rerun of The Big Bang Theory is on the TV.  I'm finally a little relaxed.  That doesn't mean I'm not worried about my son pounding some other kid's face into hamburger on the playground.  Or the classroom.  Or the school bus.  I'm just sitting down with my feet up, worrying about my son pounding some other kid's face into hamburger.

My Poet of the Week has a poem about bullying.  It comes from her collection Beauty Lessons.  I've written about Terry Godbey before.  She's funny, with lines that are razor-sharp.  You're in for a great week of poems.

Saint Marty promises.

Bully

by:  Terry Godbey

You lay in wait like a spider.  Carol Hatchett,
came at me snarling after school, kicked
the air with your spindly-legs, called me chicken.
I kept walking, my fear disguised as disgust,
arranged around me, like a magician's cape.
Now I picture you dead, buckled
under the weight of your demons,
perhaps flattened like a cartoon character
under the wheels of a furniture truck
or struck by lightning
as you opened your umbrella at the bus stop,
finally learning what it feels like
to be singled out--your black eyes
staring at the sky, lashes shaggy
with mascara, dark puddles of quicksand
that consumed anyone who fell in.

Hamburger anyone?