Perhaps they will forget,
have already forgotten
with their yellow jackets
and marker-stained fingers, ready-set
for another unfamiliar face
with their first aid kit,
strings of terminology to engage the meek
and mute, the absent without leave.

They have left me
a failed apprentice with stationery
in my pocket and an out-of-tune song.
You might well ask
where I flicker next. My polka-dotted mouth
says nothing, the answer deep
in the hole they dug, or wedged on the roof,
the last unobtainable golden jigsaw piece.