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Francis Masat

A Classroom in the Snow

Snow mixed with poignant love and disbelief. Memories long since dead are now aroused by choking clouds of plaster dust rolling away like childhood dreams and fears. Smile and sigh and die a little; they're tearing down my school.

a child
twisting string
into a bracelet

Creaking stairs and giant ceilings — bells and swings no more. Smiles and rain and running — melancholy love and nostalgic pain for long past sunlit rooms aglow with flowered, bustling bulletin boards.

the world
spinning
under a hand

The first sunlit goldfish bowl; tall women who stoop to help. I can but imagine the steel ball crashing through windowpanes, splintering the floor where I shuffled my feet beneath a desk smelling of yellow paper and soft crayons.

an eraser
clearing space
for what is next