Wow! My first day in high school!
This is totally cool
Gotta play it safe, be silent, can’t be a fool
Gotta fit in my freshmen year
Keep an open mind and an open ear
Need acceptance from my peer
My mom just died just before
It was hard to get along and just ignore
While my dad tried to be 2 parents [...]

At her Junior High School graduation,
she sings alone
in front of the lot of us–
her voice soprano, surprising,
almost a woman’s. It is
the Our Father in French,
the new language
making her strange, out there,
fully fledged and
ready for anything. Sitting
together — her separated
mother and father — we can
hear the racket of traffic
shaking the main streets
of Jersey City as she [...]