While Waiting in the Cafeteria Of Bradshaw Public School for A Meeting, I Check My Watch Once More Before Allowing Myself to Become Distracted

While Waiting in the Cafeteria Of Bradshaw

Public School for A Meeting, I Check My Watch Once More

Before Allowing Myself to Become

Distracted

It's a very small cafeteria, I'm thinking,

but it's a small town---

These must be kindergartners in here

doing their Art,

they're so small.

One boy talks loudest--- he is bigger

than all the rest.

He is coloring a map of the U.S.

and now I think these may not be

kindergartners and maybe this is Social Studies,

not Art.

My country's purple... he's saying

and his country fits neatly on the 8 1/2 X 11

dittoed sheet he pinches proudly

in his raised hand---

his country looks good in purple.

Now the children have left me

with my cup of coffee and watching

one of the cafeteria ladies place

the ketchup dispensers, spacing them evenly

across the fold-out tables,

preparing for lunch

and the squeeze bottle she sets beside me

has a picture of a 1950's housewife

dancing, the brand name,

SQEEZE-Ezy

in box-letters beneath.

I haven't seen a Squeeze-Ezy bottle

since I was 5 and with my parents

at Ideal Cafe' back home---

and suddenly I am 5

and thinking my world might fit

on an 8 1/2 X 11 sheet

and somehow maybe I do

have the power in one hand

to pull out of the box the best color

for the whole place;

and maybe if I had a hairnet like

this cafeteria lady's, her slate curls pulled,

contained, held tightly in place, maybe

one that keeps my head

inside the lines,

keeps me from always hurling myself

to the far ends of the universe---

holds me focused,

wraps the whole complicated mess

into a clearly labeled Crayola wrapper,

then I could make some kind of Art with it.