Grade School Blues

By Derk Otsuji

I put olives on my finger tips—and made grapes of brine.

I counted street lamps like beads of a rosary—on the cold walk home.

 

I drew with magic markers on the wall—and a dark forest grew.

I touched the ogre rock in the park—to ward off death another day.

 

I stared at the boiled egg in my lunch pail—and cured the hunger.

Caught in the mayhem of dodge­ball day—I van­ished altogether.

 

But I couldn’t stop them making com­ments about me.

Though I kept very still and didn’t say a word.

 

 

DERK OTSUJI is the author of The Kitchen of Small Hours (SIU Press, 2021), fea­tured in Hon­olu­lu Magazine’s “Essen­tial Hawaii Books You Should Read.” Recent work has appeared in 32 Poems, South­ern Review, and The Three­pen­ny Review. Otsuji can be found online at www.derekotsuji.com.

 

This poem orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 21. 

Photo by Rodrigo Pereira

© 2024 Stonecoast Review. Indi­vid­ual copy­rights held by contributors.

The Stonecoast Review is the lit­er­ary journal of the Stonecoast MFA at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Maine.