From an "Attic Office" virgin...er... right.

Sara here.

Since I, too, am inept at google docs and apparently need to spend some time figuring out how google's latest big mechanism works, I am going to post here. My first entry, be nice. And it's only a very rough first draft. But, better than that: it's a true story.

“The Pied Piper”

By Sara Lyn Rice

It came out like angry

jazz—but silver

from the Professor in the gold-rimmed eyeglasses:

Put on your headphones and earphones,

block out the sound

of the wheels, the silence.

This train is straight, inbound

to Harvard Square. I ain’t never seen

Obama there—in the neighborhood.

I’ll tell you where it’s at, bitch.

I don’t want anyone

stupid thinkin’ the President

is gonna save they ass right now.

In 1962 the cops were walkin’ around—you read

about 1962!—trying to arrest me, for a something

I didn’t do. There wasn’t

no Miranda, you didn’t get the rights.

I got a God who takes me away

from black, white—

Florence Nightingale, give me another healing,

Betsy Ross, sew me another flag, one with different stripes.

He abandons his soup to the floor of the train. It sits without spilling.

I’m takin’ my coat off

this train—I’ve lived in it,

will die in it... Yet.

That’s what your life is: yet. Yet,

it ain’t over. Oh, but it will be someday.

Remember

that

oh

yeah.

He stands up, never falters. People stare, try not to.

You think this is dramatic?

Just call me the Pied Piper.

Talk with your mouth

and not your hands.

That’s my last lesson,

a black lesson, muthafucka.

Then he crosses himself. People get off.

Amen.