Poem for Friday and Frying Pan Farm Park

Gradeschool's Large Windows
By Thomas Lux

weren't built to let the sunlight in.
They were large to let the germs out.
When polio, which sounds like the first dactyl
of a jump rope song, was on the rage,
you did not swim in public waters.
The awful thing was an iron lung.
We lined up in our underwear to get the shot.
Some kids fainted, we all were stung.
My cousin Speed sat in a vat
of ice cubes until his scarlet fever waned,
but from then on his heart was not the same.
My friend's girlfriend was murdered in a hayfield
by two guys from Springfield.
Linda got a bad thing in her blood.
Everybody's grandmother died.
Three times, I believe, Bobby shot his mother.
Rat poison took a beloved local bowler.
A famous singer sent condolences.
In the large second floor corner room
of my 4th grade class the windows were open.
Snow, in fat, well-fed flakes
floats in where they and the chalk-motes meet.
And the white rat powder, too, sifts down
into a box of oatmeal
on the shelf below.

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Thursday: work, bunnies, daffodils, basketball, Pocahontas 2, Russell&Paul, and now Russell on The Tonight Show singing Johnny Cash with Jimmy Fallon. Here are some animals from Frying Pan Farm Park; Friday morning early we are going to College Park for an admitted students reception so Adam can talk to the business school and honors program people, and we're having lunch afterward with Daniel -- more tomorrow!