Kevin Hodgson, of Leeds, is a sixth grade teacher at the William E. Norris Elementary School in Southampton and a co-director with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project.
(dedicated to my sixth grade students)
It’s the eyes that always give
us away — beneath the glitch
of static screens — the faded
gaze of classroom screams
of normalcy lost to summer’s call
of heat, and home, and haze
power/button
broken/chatter
thoughts/woken
words/matter
We let this final quiet
of connection simmer,
this light stream becomes us,
six feet of reach, a barrier
we’re not yet able to breach,
where something like love is
token/talk
keyboard/clatter
spoken/silence
words/matter
Box us in, and keep
us distant; each face of ours
another star falling, still,
from these skies;
such stories we’ll tell from
the absence of presence:
we’re constellations of eyes
holding/tears
sounds/chatter
linger/loss
words/matter