Jim Carr was in class
and told me everything.
Her chalky fingers 
pointing at them,
she said crazy things
about pushing strollers
with her friends,
the colors that would 
bring you luck
in your wedding, 
her sister’s babies, 
and strangely enough,
reproduction stats.
“One in four infants…”
“The highest risk of…”
“Distended ovaries occur…”
She just kept going with those.

That’s when she lost it–
throwing chalk at the board,
breaking biology models, 
pushing books off desks−
everyone left. 
Ms. Hennings oblivious,
in a world of rage.
She was tearing 
the Krebs cycle
off the wall
when principal Clark 
and Mrs. Viebrock arrived.  

Irna sat in the portable classroom,
temple pressed against 
the frosted window, 
staring out into winter.
Pain to her 
was like watching 
sleet fall from inside
a glass house.

Nobody knew 
where she came from—
some island without
corsages,
detention,
or assemblies.
Her mind was there, 
walking the sea walls—
ocean birds and palms above.
She was pretty.
But when she looked at us,
her eyes wobbled.

Of the things we did to her,
I remember Tom Yiddney,
the mongoloid,
forcing his mouth to hers
at lunch.
And the time Justin Lurton
pegged her with a dodge ball 
She fell and crapped her pants. 
We laughed. 
It meant nothing to Irna—
her mind adrift
in the yellow flowers
of the blossoming tamarind.

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Don’t ask me why I was there.
I’m not sure it was right.
Just remember—
Remember with me 
the way she looked under the nozzle, 
the shower blush of her body.
She pulled soap through her hair
to make me sure.
She walked the basin 
to find me sleeping, 
and rattle the glass between us.
I am awake.
My name is Charlie Goodfish.

More poems from The Goodfish Poems