car riders to the car port 

we all knew there were
different ways of going home--
some children walked with their
siblings out the double brown
doors at the front of the school
& the crossing guards
conducted the cars around
them in a sort of symphony--
fifth graders in safety patrol
badges letting their minds
escape down the sidewalks--
take root in the cracks
of the cement--
where did you grown your
afternoons?
the of course the bus riders
separated by
their numbered & colored
bus & sat with their book bags 
in their laps while
a lady in the cafeteria 
called "blue-seventy-two"
& "yellow-four-ninety-eight"
& i was a young girl
with my father's haircut &
two mismatched chuck taylors
& a lunch box full of clouds--
i want to pick myself up 
in the car line today--
drive back eleven or so
years ago-- 
i'll pull up in my green
volvo & the 3rd grade teacher
mrs. bowman will ask
who i am & i'll explain that
i'm myself only about a 
decade older
when she gets in
the front seat
i'll tell her
she doesn't need to
wear a seat belt--
that today we're
going throw her spelling homework
out the window & 
read e. e. cummings & 
discover everything you
can do to a sentence--
pluck the periods out
of our chapter books--
plump blueberries
plinking in a steel bowl between
us-- i'll show her how
you can wear question marks
for earrings & for dinner
we can eat gas station doughnuts
& i'll ask her to tell
me about the boys she has crushes
on & how sometimes she
writes
their initials on the inside-cover 
of her math notebook--
i tell her to peel off their
names & drop them on
the backs of a dead leaves
in the stream-- 
i say that it's okay
to day dream about them--
let the water
tension keep their bodies afloat--
& sometimes it's okay to drown
in sweaty-hand elementary 
school love--
she asks if i ever got
to love someone & i tell her
i have & that you don't finish
loving people-- that you never
finish loving people
& that's why the leaves grow back
each year so we have more
vessels to drop in the creak
when we turn crimson & marmalade--
she gets tired early because
i forgot how early elementary
school children go to bed
& at nine she lays out 
on the bench in the park &
i pick her up like an infant--
put her glasses on the dash
board & i drive her back
to her rain forest bed room with
the rain sound machine pounding
on her windows--
i lay her in bed-- 
gently brush her
hair out of her face &
leave her
with a bowl of blueberries--
washed & ready to be used in
poems-- 
i leave her a notebook 
& tell her to fill the first
two pages & forget to write
more-- this is the process of
teaching words come home
to you at night--
i tell her that tomorrow
her father will pick her up
at the car port in his blue
jeep & she won't remember me
& the fifth grade safety 
patrol officers will break
free
into a rush down the sidewalks 
& her shoe laces will tie themselves--
oh girl with my father's hair cut &
a blue denim jacket--
keep your pockets stuffed 
with sweaty-palm love-- 
baptize yourself clean  
in the creek & pick up
the pages of spelling home work
we threw out the window--
kidnap the words from
their pages--
peel
the blue lines 
your the notebook
paper-- 
braid them into 
a cloud--