It was the quiet class that term—thoughtful,

waiting to be taught, counting to themselves

syllables in poems, charting characters in prose—

who saw it happen, my words quickening

like the gait of a chased gazelle,

my skin gone flush

not from embarrassment, or at least not much

from that, but from the hives that grew

like mutant fruits across my face,

my neck, my hands. At first I thought it

the product of bitter pills for my heart,

a slow organ not sure how to beat precisely

in the dark last days of 2016.

 

I tried to ignore it, teachers like dancers

on a stage, sore joints wrapped to remind us

the show must go on.

Then one day my tongue swelling between my teeth

left me feeling I’d bitten too much.

I waved them away and went dashing through offices,

begging for antihistamines.

 

Who knows what the students must have thought

as, when next we gathered, we switched classrooms

to escape whatever inflamed my skin

and fired my bundled-up nerves?

 

A year later, when it happened again

in a different room, a different class, I pieced it 

together: something about yellow chalk

didn’t sit well in my hands.

 

At that moment, I remembered the faces of the students

from the year before, watching rings cut through

my fingers, listening to words gone thick 

as fat ham on a hungry man’s tongue. 

 

That day, feeling sorry for me, they began to speak.

That day, they asked each other smart questions.

I could do nothing but listen,

and the songs their words sang were beautiful,

a balm to anyone’s overburnt ears.

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By Jo Angela Edwins