Third Period
by Dan Pettee

Impressions lifted from the classroom blotter:
by rote the powers of the pestle
hammer truth to essence,
reform to ideality.
Late morning: sunburst slices on the nerve
of words, bisects the paragraph --
meaning and meaninglessness,
reality and dream.
The while, thighs warm and itch
unbidden, juices rise and swirl.
Mind's tentacles extend to grasp
the elements of sense,
the inkstain residue a film
of half-tones, always minus sound.
The mind is a blotter, ocean-green,
a saline sponge absorbing essence:
the metronome of quartered bells.
Time again and time it happens --
scalloped clouds, sun's sheen, riant rain,
the shrill chalk scream, smoke screen
pale as fishes' flesh.
The shudder of the breeze, of skin,
the railing and the rattling of chipped bones --
and life ant-crawls down the skeleton
from youth to earth...