By Jove! by June
fifth
you can almost
hear—from out
here
on the broad midday streets
each sweaty tick!
of every
single yellowing mechanical
wallmounted clock—that still
haunts all
of America's flecked and dark
linoleum classrooms—
mocking clenched columns
of steam-hissing fists
and eyeballs
with each subsequent
loud and dark
clack!—pounding louder
and with hotter
and more illimitable force—against
the eroding brick-
wall
semantic distinction—
formally delineating
schoolkids
from that—oh so much
rarer—and yet
much
more simply defined
regular kind!