Feelz Trip

I got tired of pushing sublime at my students.

William Cowper, Lord Byron, James Thomson, 

Samuel Rogers?! Let’s just say those old boys 

weren’t hitting under the busted-up ceiling panels 

and flickering fluorescent lights of my classroom. 

My students were squirming in the hard plastic

cells of their desks, so I decided to take them 

outside where they could be sublimed head on. 

I thought they could observe an ant on a blade of grass 

1000 ant-inches from the ground. I thought maybe

they could feel the billowing Dona Ana breeze 

tickle their forearms. I thought they could see 

the whole world pressed perfectly 

into a sphere, into a great glittering drop 

of morning dew. I told them they could leave 

their phones in the room. I said we’re going 

on a feelz trip. Like obedient ants they marched 

out my door and down the D Wing. They didn’t 

smile or laugh but ants rarely do. They seemed 

tired and desperate, but I knew nature 

would be their balm. With my meditation block, 

I propped the school door. Immediately Nyeema 

slapped her leg; Xavion his arm. A cloud 

of zika Zapatistas had risen from the dying crabgrass 

to greet us in full force. The lining of Caitlyn’s brain 

swelled with West Nile. Mosquitoes sunk their IVs 

directly into the bloodshots of our eyes. All the while 

the heat dome sizzled above, spraying down 

solar flares that caught our hair and faces on fire. 

From heat exhaustion, Nadia was vomiting, 

leaning on a locust tree just to stand.

Randy was clawing his eyes out. 

I stood there scanning the carnage, 

I thought it’s still good, but when I saw Lupita 

lunging for the heavy traffic of I-70 

just to stop this onslaught of proboscis, 

my trust in the outdoors was thrust 

from my clapped hands like a mosquito 

freed by the very ferocity of my clapping.

I hurried all those still ambulatory back inside, 

back in to affirm their hunch of holding their own 

over the screens of their phones. I thought next time 

barefoot so they could really know 

how the ground feels beneath their toes.