The sweet olive
Takes me back
To a building
Built in 1911.
With no name,
Heat, or AC,
Not enough power
For the engineers.
But language students
Don’t need electricity
To round words
Seine, saints, seins.
River, saint, breasts.
The difference is
Only fat, water,
And which floats.
Full glottal stops
Were hard won.
A parenthetical mouth
Rusts with disuse.
Before honors class
I bought coffee,
Burnt and sticky,
From the blind.
I don’t know
When it changed,
From killing time
To saving it.
The relentless need
To conquer it,
Hold it still,
Boss it around.
But it disobeys,
Turns reds grey.
It graduates with
Devilwood in May.