Public School

He’d pass notes I had to hide
(stolen answer keys to tests
I didn’t ask to see),

pull out my chair, sliding
his hands down my sleeves.
Of course, I stayed quiet.

He’d miss school for days
and say only that his mother
had slept too late to drive him.

Of course, the dark circling
one eye or another of hers wasn’t
the shade of the well-rested.

(His words, to be particular
about it, were, Lazy bitch
won’t get out of bed.)

But there are matters to be kept
at home, given privacy.
The class bought an alarm clock

for the family, plastic hands
to intercede. I hadn’t thought
of him, the ticking,

for thirty years. Until hearing
the news that he’d blown off
his own hands, building a bomb.

And local women murmuring,
He’s not a terrorist. It was only
his daddy he meant to kill.

At least he isn’t the kind
to target a public place.
These ventured beneath

the general Beats me
or No comment at all.
Yes, we’d gone to school,

been folded into desks’
narrow holds, alongside him.
We’d learned rules, like

keeping our hands to ourselves.
A few things we do know.