January, Johnson Hall

From beneath the pillows, comes:

“If Latin weren’t dead, I’d murder it.”

The threat hovers like our breath would,

and I want to claim accomplice to the crime.

Fifteen lines to go, outside the wind.

We fill the margins with hypotheticals and dares.

Radiator’s busted, so our secrets grow secrets

in the hothouse winter night. Beneath our desks,

in baskets, the cores of stolen apples - rot perfume.

(At the dining hall: “Please do not remove the fruit.”)

At dawn we trek on salted paths, through drifts,

to guzzle milk and cereal, burgle green bananas

and watch them ripen in the climate of the room.

Orchid-making should ensue, or plots. Conspiracy.

At dusk we unlock a window to the frosted fields

and blanketed hills to do translation.

Safe, as clumsy spies in hiding,
next-door suburb neighbors.

School makes good fugitives of us.

Fifteen lines to go, outside the wind.

CDL