FUCK THIS SHIZ.

I didn't get a snow day. Mr. O called at 5:30 because I asked him to, and he said: 2 Hour delay. All of the other schools in our county got a snow day. But not us. We have good plows that pave the way for buses. We have school on our agenda. What a load of shit.

Anyway. I called my mom on the way to work today and asked her to send me a pair of snowpants. In this case, I'll be prepared for when we do finally get our snow day. And I won't have to wear 7 pair of pants just to shovel the driveway for two hours, since our snow blower has officially taken a giant, snowy shit. But I like shoveling the driveway, when the wind isn't blowing in my face, when the sky is cloudy and snow falls all soft and snowy like how it's supposed to. I liked on Saturday when we shoveled, too--James and me singing Christmas songs, me sneaking up from behind and dumping snow on him only to claim it was an accident. We'd been inside all day until then, and when we finally gone out the top layer of snow had hardened so we had to crack our shovels into the top layer of snow to get to the plush underneath. Like a Creme Brulee.

And it broke off, that top layer, in magnificent chunks. Very specific shapes. I said: look James! A perfect pentagon! And then I thought of the story that Lil' P had once told me about her math teacher finding geometry wherever he looked. Kids! Geometry is everywhere! He'd said. Shapes here, shapes everywhere you look! He wasn't even my teacher and he inspired me in a story through Jenny. He wasn't even my teacher and I know that he wore disgusting, somewhat translucent white pants to school everyday.

I also decided that the stiff Creme Brulee chunks of top-snow could most definitely be different countries. Like that time that Jenny and I debated whether a cloud looked more like Cuba or Austria while in the wave pool at Wisconsin Dells. The East side of it was wider; clearly it was Austria. Jenny just said Cuba because she's a Communist, like Lillian Hellman. (Who is not like the mayonnaise.)

Anyway. I wrote a poem this morning as an joke/anti-Ode to this two-hour delay teasing bull-honky. I read it to the students. I wrote this in 10 minutes, I said to them. So be nice. First hour clapped. Second hour looked at me like I'm lame for having written a poem about an almost-snow day.

Two Hour Delay, Thou Art a Villain, Thou Art
BY MS. P

An unsigned yellow cast
on an awkward child,

leaving the flesh of the forearm
in a stinking vacuum,

dehydrating like prune fingers
in a cool bath. You are flat

soda, but decievingly cold, wet
on tongue, but no bubbles. Brown water.

It is as though my neighbor's house started
on fire and from the street we crossed

our arms, blew clouds of breath,
and watched it burn--but the smoke,

like a dark spirit crawled
into my windows and weaved into

the fibers of my clothing, hid
beneath rugs, plated itself like fresh food

onto my dishes. Two hour delay,
I have eaten the loaf of you and found

your last piece to be moldy, the green fuzz
like the dried, soft hair of a newborn. I am thirsty,

two hour delay. But you say: go to class--
and instead of giving me water,

you spit yellow snot into
the bottom of my glass.