Learning about Clocks  
   
     
  The girl at her desk is six.  
  The walls of the classroom are cream-of-broccoli green,  
   
  the desks, oatmeal; each chair has the muted speckle  
  of chewable vitamins. It is good for her.  
   
  In the quiet the metal chair legs rasp.  
  The teacher stands and holds the construction paper in her hand. She says  
   
  fold this in two and two again. The paper looks like a greeting card  
  or an upside down bird. (A bird in the hand is worth something.)  
   
  The girl takes her paper and creases it. It is important to make each rectangle fine.  
  In the future language will help her. She will say  
   
  I am devoted to symmetry.  
  Today she is primary, red and blue.  
   
  The paper is getting messy.  
  A compass and 4 circles are somehow involved  
   
  Who will love that which is slow? In the other children's circles  
  the crooked, sly numbers begin to make their rounds.  
   
 

Artwork: Tracey Anderson / Collaborative Statements