Colors & Lines

I started school in the south with my baby teeth falling out
Right away, Miss Arrowwood taught me about lines:
How to stand straight in them
How to squeeze letters between solid & dashed ones
How to color inside them

She also taught me that colors don’t have to stay in the box
Beginning with the exotic tone of her skin - creamy & brown
Like the sweet chocolate-milk I chugged down in the lunchroom

I learned a lesson about the taste of white craft paste
Bland & starchy on the tongue
If you get caught eating it
You have to learn
The cold steel of the punishment pole in the center of the room
How many times did my nose freeze with the cold of it
Cross-eyed
Living within the lonely & torturous world of that avocado green

In rows of rust & mustard
Purple was the color of the books with the rarest spines
My five year old eyes would seek them out
As I drifted on the smell of must & ink down the library aisles

My only sworn enemy - naptime
No matter how I tried to resist, it’s undeniable power would overtake me
And cover me with its gray blanket of sleep
Except for that one time - the day my tiny fingers
Found a crack in the plastic of my blue & red nap mat
Dug out the yellow sponge inside and carried it to my curious mouth
Three trips to the boys’ room sink for secret water
To dislodge the lump in my throat taught me silver
The color of the safety pin securing a note for my parents to my shirt

A few of us were chosen to leave the others behind to take turns
Playing with tangrams, 3-D puzzles & the single, sacred computer
Black screen. Orange cursor blinking at me all electric, mysterious & wild
I loved its amber glow more than recess, but less than I loved Miss Arrowwood

Afterall, she was the one who schooled me on numbers & letters
Dick & Jane
Chocolate-milk skin
And that most of the time, it’s better to color outside the lines.