Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked from Stone Soup Poetry's open mic readers and features. I figure out a title (and sometimes the rest of the poem) later. You can read the other ones I've done since 2015 here.
I also have a book out now collecting the best of my first year of poems. Click here to purchase it.
Stone Soup is still back! It's a miracle anything is working this week. If this has to be the only thing, then I'm grateful. Lots of music this week, even from Carol Weston. You should listen.
A while ago, a classmate from high school posted this message on Facebook about having a high school reunion (I still have dreams about that math classroom years later). I haven't been to a reunion since the tenth year. As I enter year nth, I find less and less reason to go. That fed into this poem, of course.
So odd to have an "I" in one of these poems. I'm also surprised I haven't written a poem about a hypothetical high school reunion before. Thanks for reading.
To Miss the Reunion
I don't need to pile into
my math class room
umpteen year later.
No newly unearthed
photos of my face,
No resurfacing
of senior superlative
unaccepted.
Most Likely to be
Homeless, my one pebble's
everlasting impression.
A squeaky choir laughing
at my choice to not wear
tombstone for my roast.
The boys will wear
best new suits, pressed
entrepreneur collars,
inquire whether
I am available
as a security guard,
recycle jokes crushed
from sophomore year
and call them fresh.
At least no mother
to not believe what
I say, then not care
friends and family
tired of cataloging
all they think I'm not.
Chill wind directed
when gang lists
their favorite things
about most favorite
president to secretly
never leave office.
They'll paint pictures
in to same words repeated
thousand of times,
bronze parents' racism,
gather around to choke
on angel ashes,
claim it's magic dust
to off-duty police
in attendance.
The morning after,
I'm back to the thanks
of satisfactory reviews.
The beautiful never
stand fully behind me
(love might make me lax).
Love is immortal,
they say, so it can
wait for something better.
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