Elise Hu

Yes, well, it is.

And, you know, of course, when a poem is autobiographical, I think sometimes I get a little, you know, hackles up because I want to say, like, and it's crafted, too.

And there are always moments of poetic license.

And sometimes I almost remember it like I wrote it rather than as it happened, which is sort of an interesting thing.

The memory is so fluid.

Yeah, and I believe poems more than I believe anything, actually, really.

Or once I've made something, I believe it more than what happened.

Because it's fixed, perhaps, maybe.

But I was at a different school at the time.

The story behind here, the speaker attended the Georgetown Day School.

That was my happy school.

That was a very kind of free, wonderful, hippie school.

It was a beautiful place.

And this is a story about the only black teacher I had.

So it's called Tina Green School.

Small story, hair story, Afro-American story.

Only black girl in my class story, pre-adolescent story, black teacher story.

Take your hair out, they beg on the playground, the cool girls, the straight and shiny hair girls, the girls who can run.

Take your hair out, they say.

It is Washington hot, we are running, I do, and it swells, snatches up at the nape, levitates, woolly universe, nodding, fleece zeppelin, run.