Dragon

You have a soft spot for the boy,

the quiet sophomore boy,

whose arrivals always smell

of second hand smoke

and unwashed sleep beneath

a pilled, black beanie.

You’ve watched him fashion

serpents for years:

a dragon head of clay

glued to spiral wired frame,

skinned with plaster and paint,

suspended from fishing line.

Before that, a clay snake circling

a slab rolled mug, red and green,

always red and green. And now,

a plan for stained glass:

a dragon built of shards

he will grind and foil and weld,

build something dark for light

to shine through. So, when,

on the field trip bus, he sits

across the aisle from you,

coughing, oozing green from nostrils

as he has for many months,

seeking tissues from your purse,

just trying to get his body from home

to school to a building full

of fantastical art, you brace

yourself for the illness to come,

sense it nesting, surrender when it hits:

the cough, the sputtering cough

of a dragon, trying to rise,

to rise again and again

from every cave, this one in you.