Wrecked
Wake late
Nothing clean
Wear yesterday’s undies
Crushed uniform
Sister’s socks
She screams at me
Mum screams at me
We scream at one another
We’re running late
Jammed in bumper-to-bumper traffic
Kiss Mum goodbye, no way
Across the empty playground
Running, I drop
The paper Mache dinosaur
That took four hours
Last night
Of hard, hard work
My project
Now it’s crushed, like me
Late for assembly
Everyone stares
Teachers’ eyebrows are raised
And classes haven’t even begun.
© Dianne Bates
(Published in Our Home is Girt by Sea)
- Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #26