Middle School Boots Poem by Jack Otterberg

she wore tragedy
like a gold medal
won at the post office.
her voice so wispy, her hair thin—
she didn't know the lessons
time held up to her face.

always, as a child,
she had a passion
for finding the sadness in things— the
thin mistrust of light on
brick facades,
the cackles of popular girls and boys
who'd deploy their armies of
glaring eyes at her.

so it was a tragedy, but no surprise,
to find her body in the air
that soft April night
when even the moonlight cried.
wasn't it a thin voice
that took her to the other world?