27 Psaltery & Lyre: Angela Felsted, “it starts”

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it starts

near the neon orange monkey bars
a few feet from the

                  t
      w
 i
        s
                    t
          y
  s
            l
                      i
                                    d
                                                      e

                            when Amy and Jennifer won’t speak to me.

no

it starts inside a crowd of students
eyes lifted to the paper altar
put up by my fifth grade teacher,
a list
The List
printed in her loopy script
laughing o’s and e’s and a’s
saying why we have less recess.

no
no

it starts and ends
with me
the single person on the list
who threw away my classmates’ fun
when I failed to turn in
my assignment.

 

Angela Felsted is a musician, poet, and nature lover. Her work has appeared in issue fifteen of Drown in Your Own Fears, in Chantarelle’s Notebook, and on her blog. Her chapbooks, CLEAVE and Scarred were published in 2012. You can visit her at www.angelafelsted.com

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