The School of the Unschoolable
By Chen Chen
See the stars nightly
disobeying the night.
Watch the pattering rain
sketch an anarchist’s
map to the future, then
unpattern it away—
an anarchist’s revision.
Praise my mother
who wears a plaid hoodie
over a polka dot sweater
over a simply
brown sweater.
Praise your fashion icon,
though I doubt she’s
as iconoclastic.
Prove my doubt
so wrong.
Call the sun
the heterophobe
it’s always been.
Never stop babbling
to old friends or
fields about your earliest
whiff of banana bread.
Lick the sad
from the sea & on
a Tuesday.
Flabbergast
in some earthly
mouthful of a way
& tonight.
