The centipede (peace on Earth) by Jeremy Nathan Marks
In a basement classroom paid for
by the leftovers from a public budget
an instructor teaches refugees English
she says her first tongue is pidgin
and laughs like a mother bird
feeding her brood milk from a rag
her remarks make me think how
teaching is scuppering the boots
of a man who would kick a dog
he works two to three jobs and collects
bottles on his commutes detesting
this life among rats.
I admire the way the instructor’s verbs
fly despite the weight of abstruse
syntactic rules and silent letters
that would clip the wings of any poet
English purloins sounds
from its consonants and vowels
with the temperament of a syphilitic
king never considering how we might
one day abandon it for French Cree
or Mandarin.
Which is why when a centipede
crosses the floor and she crushes it
without a second thought I mourn
its purple blood like bread and wine
spilled on this dingy floor
for the rest of the day, I swear I will
hold my hand up high under the dull
sky to keep the gnats away from
my face in an effort to not swat them
because I am now certain the Lord lives
as an ellipsis in the eyes of tiny insects
infinite tentacular visions
which is why if we learn to speak like bugs
there will be peace on Earth.
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