The Poem Confesses It's Happy It Didn't Win The Contest

I don't want to wind up in the classrooms
hated by the children who have me for homework.
let me be puffy clouds rejected by the little magazines

as sappy as all get out like greeting cards used to be
slap some glitter on me, I won't mind
a big pastel smile.

runaway candy on a spree (from the candystores).
with adjectives galore. and quotes to go with:
"strew on {me} roses, roses..."

I'll be free while you're at the workshops sweating it out
when other people watch you get up to read
their blunt scissors sharpened.

Whee!
watch me sommersault away
and it's a Spring day

and I don't have any work at all
to go back to. I'm stardust out of the jar;
no readings for NPR.

mary angela douglas 31 march 2016