Who Will Clean Out Your Desks?
By Jen Nails
Who will clean out your desks?
A dirty penny that you can’t tell the year,
an invitation to Hudson’s bday in September,
math worksheets and one LEGO,
a red and yellow bouncy ball,
paper clips and a crumpled post-it that says “I love you!”
Pencil boxes and old erasers,
just a pencil point,
one Pokémon card,
(Cramorant)
an empty glue stick,
teddy bear keychain,
a dusty Harry Potter mask.
What about your backpacks?
Dirt-smudged,
softer and less stiff and starched than in August,
the broken zipper that your mom tied back on with string,
water bottle with the broken nozzle,
fruit snack bag and one goldfish cracker,
drawing of the Titanic on the back of a grammar worksheet.
Who will return your library books?
Which ones did you like this year? Bad Kitty? Lunch Lady? Raina Telgemeier?
Rita Williams-Garcia? Horse books? Sad books? Volcanoes?
I started babysitting when I was 11,
was a nanny for years,
coached gymnastics,
taught writing and English and theater and
now I’m a school librarian and
write books for children.
Everything I do is about kids
so
I can’t stop thinking about those 19 desks,
19 backpacks,
19 summer vacations,
19 new pairs of sandals.
19 next school years and school years after that
and after that and after that
and what you all might have done.
Where do unlived futures go?
Did you have Field Day?
Did you hold that fraction test from October
that you got a 40 on
in one hand
and the one from December
that you got an 80 on
in the other?
What were your summer plans?
I give up on the words
“policy change” and “gun control” and “pain into action,”
(This kind of poem is its own genre now.)
but I will go to school today,
finish inventory in the library,
pass out literary magazines,
meet with Middle School Writing Club,
write comments for that cute 6th grader that shared his murder-on-the-train story with me,
sign yearbooks,
end-of-year stuff that every student and teacher has earned,
but
my whole
“just breathe and keep being kind to children” mantra –
when there’s another school shooting –
will be impossible
when there are no more children
to be kind to
Jen Nails, a proud Las Vegas native, is a children’s librarian and the author of middle grade novels One Hundred Spaghetti Strings (HarperCollins, 2017) and Next to Mexico (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008). When she’s not on the story carpet or in the stacks, you can find her hiking across the Southwest with her sons and boyfriend, coaching flag football, or performing in a poetry slam (probably the oldest/baddest-assed participant). Say hi at jennails.com or @jennailsit19.
Photo courtesy of of Jen Nails.