HER LAST STAND

Halloween is over, so she’ll pull
down the Rubbermaid bins
marked Thanksgiving and get ready
to teach a lesson like its 1977.
She’ll wear a headband with a feather;
a Pocahontas costume from the Party Store,
and put her hair up in braids.
She’ll stand at the classroom door
greet the kids with a raised hand
and say, Ugh, How, Kemo Sabe and
call them all her little braves.

She’s make vests out of paper bags,
War bonnets out of construction paper,
Tom toms out of coffee cans that she saved,
and wampum necklaces out of uncooked ziti.
Room mothers will prepare a snack and paint
streaks of paint on the children’s little cheeks.
They’ll all trace their hands; put beaks on the
thumb’s outline to make a Tom Turkey.
She’ll call them to the rug for a Pow Wow
and tell them to sit “Native American style”.