Grade School Chaperoning Field Trips

After Reading Erin Murphy’s “Vaughn”

There’s one in every class,
the kid no one likes.
The one who sits in the back
of the bus, by herself,
her legs crossed at the ankles,
looking out the window
at nothing, through way out
of style glasses frames.
The one who doesn’t get the jokes,
the homely girl, the one who had no BFF,
who has no one to draw heart’s
around and pretend she loves.
Or he is the overweight, quiet
boy, whose parents divorced when
no one’s parents did, who knows
all the answers but is afraid to
raise his hand in class, who the other
boys steal money from, who get beat up
but knows better than to tell by whom.

Like the girl at Frontier Town who wants
to buy something but is so small and
shy and unassuming at the back of
the souvenir seeking crowd,
no one ever sees her. Whose ten-dollar
bill I take and asking her if the Indian
maiden doll is cool and she shakes her
head, yes, shyly smiling and you buy it,
give her the change. On the way home
she still sits by herself at the back
of the bus but now she has a lovely
new toy to be with, is smiling instead
of aimlessly looking out the window.

Back at school, you can see how much
her momma loves her, how glad she is
her baby got a new toy.

I know how it feels to be the kid
no one likes. No one ever bought me
a toy but I got over it.

***

(Featured image from Pexels)