No More T.E.s

By Anna Bernard

In my poems
I am not struggling with a numb foot
a twitching eyelid
and a weird hollow feeling in my chest
when I come awake.
My skin isn't going all to parchment
and my hair is fluffy.
I have vitality and adventures.
I can bounce like a child with moon shoes.
In my Audi, I am spoiled,
A Peruvian Moche woman ruler
in my chariot of gold.
My long black braids
whip along in the wind
and my crown is riding
easily in the back.
I eat no guinea pigs,
Just well prepared maize and potatoes,
green vegetables and grains.
Dinner will be waiting
when I pull up to the palace.
Since childhood I have been a teacher,
always a reader
a maker of many crafts
and a songful diurnal coyote.
Ten thousand stories
have walked up the ramp of my consciousness
and of those,
I remember ten thousand fragments
that color my adulthood.
In my wishes I am retired and learning new ways.
I write letters to the editor.
I edit my own writing and I write.
Lemons and sugar commingle
in a pleasant blend of life as art
and life becomes Art
and toil becomes Art and
Teacher's Editions darken my days no more...