When the verb collides with the noun

When the verb collides with the noun

 Reaching into the grammar box

of carefully designed

and curated shapes

 I look for the perfect one to signify

 all the emotions

 all the feels

 all the things

 that keep me sane

 from the insanity

 of all things

 transitive and intransitive

 You know they really should

 make a symbol

 that I can grab

 And

 fling across the room

 Or

 stuff in my pocket

 like a three-year-old

 coveting the top of the

 Pink

 Tower

You know

 the one the embarrassed

 parents returns to school

 in a snack sized Ziploc

 apologizing while wondering

 if their child

 has a proclivity to thievery

 I would love to have

 a wooden symbol of Shame

 that I gleefully grind up

 in the never-working pencil sharpener

 only to have it’s shavings

Spread

Throughout

The classroom

Like star-stuff exploding from the

Black Balloon that was

Popped 9 months ago

Remnants of which cling 

To the picked-through

Carpet fringe

Refusing to let go

Hanging on for dear life

Grammar symbols 

Are

Concrete treasures for the

Inexplicably never-explanable

Moments of

abstract feelings that

Pop

Up

When all things

Organized spillout-

Like when someone haplessly

Drops the racks and tubes  causing

The kids to stop and stare-

But scurry to help

Put

It 

All back

While letting the stunned student know

Others have done it before

Together like worker bees repairing 

The hive

They  swarm

And in a split second go

On to their work

Without missing a beat

I think 

I’ll throw the

Grammar box symbols

Up into the air

And see what falls on

To my carefully unrolled 

Dirty white woven rug

Made in India that

Smells lightly of Tide

Then I will

Practice walking around

It without treading

On all of

The work

The Work

Life created

Without me