Pedagogy

We used to call it “Swain School of Distain.”
A vending machine art school in New Bedford,
Massachusetts, the arm pit of Cape Cod.
My first assignment was to paint 100 grey values
between black and white.
My Philosophy Prof looked like Kurt Vonnegut.
I wrote an essay about giving Heidi away.
He made love to my 18 year old body in the guesthouse
of his 16th century farmhouse in Barnstable.
He took black and white photos of my youth as
his wife watched from a window,
backlit by the fire of a wood stove.

He gave me an "A" that semester.

My brother helped me cop my first crib. The landlady
had an eggplant nose and warts with hair.
She paid no mind to the cockroach circus that illuminated
the dark corners of the one room studio apartment.
She would open the old wooden window to my room
like a gargoyle confessional.
But it was cheap and my black eyes would pay for it.

I walk to school digging through matted confetti leaves of fall,
finding remnants of rusted pop culture and old bicycle parts.
I weld them together in sculpture class.

Artistgirl and I moved in with two rich brothers, Charles and Richard,
renting the servants quarters of a bedraggled seafarer’s mansion in
Fall River. A ghost paced the widow’s peak, searching the Atlantic Ocean,
probing the gasping water like a searchlight.
They fed us amphetamines and drove us to parties in their red
BMW convertible.
I saw Charles a year later. I’m a waitress at a fried clam shack and
20 lbs overweight.
I overheard him mutter to his bro, “Bub got chubby!”

Girls. Never do Uppers.