Man with Earring

by Sarah Henry

A guy in the art history class

comes swinging down the hall

with a garnet earring blazing.

He discovers a pile of my poems

on the floor beside a door.

He picks up the whole thing

and begins to read.

The first poem is about him.

He is famous with me.

I have celebrated him

in passionate verse:

   “The sun sets on

         the garnet in your ear, etc.”

He staggers backward, amazed.

Recovering, he reads poem

after starry-eyed poem.

One of them has his name on it,

just as he was beginning to hope.

(This is called “foreshadowing.”)

 And he hasn't read my journal!

Behind the door,

my English teacher jogs papers

casually, and wonders what

a foolish schoolboy would make

of his female student's drivel,

if it penetrated his skull like

laser beams from outer space.

Love is mutual overvaluation

and light in space is bent.

* * * * *

Sarah Henry studied with two U.S. poet laureates at the University of Virginia. Today she lives near Pittsburgh, where her poetry has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Poetry Review. Farther afield, Sarah's work was published in Soundings East, The Hollins Critic, What Rough Beast and more, as well as six anthologies. CheapPop and Donut Factory included her humorous prose. Humor is very important to her.