Today’s Poem

Chicagoing

All of fifth grade was going
overnight to Chicago. I didn’t
think the Field Museum
would be that great: dusty
bones of dinosaurs, the rotten eggs
smell around a sarcophagus, more candy
models of a nucleus. So what.
A tour of Wrigley Field: do they
call it that because of what’s stuck
under each seat? The Shedd is nothing
much. Just a large aquarium full of ducks,
halibut, and a few sad-looking box turtles.
Its destitute compared to Sea World.
And besides the bus rides with Mrs. Hettinger
singing and making us sing Frere Jacques.
I though all this and shook my little fist,
destitute. Me and three other slow learners
sitting with the substitute. We didn’t earn
the right go because of an F or a couple of Ds.
We prayed for someone to get sick
on the bus and for the driver to have
run out of sawdust.

-Jason Braun