The kids will be home soon. Last day of school.
One has to add up what one can’t subtract,
parceling out what one can’t yet divide
by multiplying entities, McCool
is thinking, as he thinks the matter through
thoroughly, at the bus stop by the creek.
But entities should not be multiplied
beyond necessity. This is a fact.
Clearly, he needs a shave. The sky is blue.
After that he has almost no ideas
for three or four weeks, waiting for their bus,
day after day, till the last day of school.
Things should look up, with the last day of school
almost behind us. That the spelling bees
are dominated by his progeny
means something. A puffed up, prideful McCool
would not be good, he thinks, but still each child
deserves that special something. So do you.
The kids probably know what they will do.
With games and skirmishes, lamps in the trees,
more summer colors minatory where
no one’s been lately, “sleeping out,” wrapped up
in uninterpreted dreams, in pup tents—
might feel a lot like the last day of school.
For Cynthia Wright
VI.16.2013