sundae

at the end of each middle school year
i remember a tradition where students got to
make sundaes of chosen teachers.
writing this poem, i discovered 
there's a difference in spelling between 
sundae & sunday. etmologists think
"sundae" used to refer to ice cream left over
from sunday. all of my life
is left over from the week before
or the year before or the decade before.
i can still smell the middle school gym.
tarps on the floor.
a man kneels while three 7th graders
pour chocolate sauce all over his head.
the sauce drips slow across his shirt.
in my memory, all the teachers 
are dressed in their everday clothes 
though i know this isn't true. 
there's no way they just let their 
short sleeve button-ups & patterned ties
be ruined, or maybe there is &
everyone was un-worried about 
streaks of chocolate & globs of 
strawberry topping. i know i sat
on the bleachers. other students
stomped their feet to cheer 
as our teachers were covered. i am a ghost
even in my own memroy. what were we
trying to do? was it about power?
what kind of display? how should i make sense
of the scene now that i am older & 
have forgotten more than i thought i would
when i was thirteen & picked dandelions 
from the backyard? 
i imagined the sundae textures.
the caramel in between fingers. sweet residue
on lips. standing in a bathtube once
i poured a can of diet coke
across the tops of my feet & it felt
cool & bubbly. chosen students scooped 
mounds of vanilla ice cream & piled them
on our teachers' heads. one had four scoops
balanced there before they slopped down
onto the blue tarp below. grimaced faces
of teachers. clenched frists.
math teachers & social studies teachers
& teachers who were cruel & teachers who were 
forgettable. years after these displays
doing dishes at the restaurant
i made a point to grab handfuls
of uneaten ice cream, trying to search for
this sensation-- the one those teachers felt.
i think about waste & hungry people & america
& the nights at the end of the week 
when our cabinets where haunted with only teeth. 
do i want to be made into a sundae?
no, not in the same way though. i wouldn't want
to be seen. i would want it to be private.
by myself on a cool night in june
right when school would be ending.
dripping with syrups & sprinkles 
struck to my skin. the sweet creamy melt
of skin. the moon an empty bowl
through the window.