He is looking down
then shifting his eyes
to the laughing kids in the classroom
through the doorway facing us
the hall empty after the first period bell.
He towers above me by half a foot
his long, languid body tilting
at the middle like a plant shoot
that has grown too quickly
needing support, wilting
from its own weight.
Wavy, long red hair tumbling
down his face like a mudslide
obscuring his brown eyes
almost too dark, like buttons
stuck into a freckled snowman.
He asks about his grade
through clenched teeth
his body turned away from me
a flag at half-mast.
The tension between us
its own living, breathing being
pumping and palpitating
birthing a new breed
of insolence, coating us
thick like syrupy fingerprints stick
creeping into my consciousness
every time our eyes meet.
Jennifer Novotney’s work appears in Edison Literary Review, The Beatnik Cowboy, Still Point Arts Quarterly, and The Vignette Review, where she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She won the 2014 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award for her novel, Winter in the Soul. She lives in Pennsylvania where she teaches English.
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