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Rodrigo Fails to Meet the Learning Objective

by Ginny Lowe Connors

Numbers wheel across the whiteboard,
swerve of swallows arcing suddenly over the bridge

into the evening sky. He remembers that sky
from last night, settling over the city
in its startling hues of indigo and gold.

Without even trying, he memorized the birds,
their geometry of appear and disappear,
feathered unison in the fading light.

But right now Rodrigo doesn’t have the answer—
the integer, the positive number, the solution,
the refrain. All he has is the feeling

that chairs have nothing to do with living (yet here he sits),
that figures are meant to be moving
and that dance, although it’s not for boys,

not for boys like him, would be a better way to answer.
He knows this in all the muscles of his body,
in all the colors of his mind … but how to say it?

Rodrigo squirms in his seat, concentrates
on a wasp knocking itself against the window.
The light’s become a slippery plane, hard, indecipherable

but still the wasp keeps climbing and buzzing, feeling
its way along, looking for a way out.

from White Sail at Midnight by Ginny Lowe Connors (The Poetry Box, 2024)
nominated for The Pushcart Prize by Shawn Aveningo Sanders, editor/publisher

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