Public Eye

Reading accounts of the historical
Migrations of artists
Whole schools
As if they all gathered each day at 8
At the sound of the bell
Moving on to junior high
Crushes on teachers
The kiss of the classmate effected
In these migrations
Everyone lives as in a book
And needn’t pay the gas man
Or tell the neighbors goodbye
Cancel the papers
Sell their cars and wrong-climate clothes
The children aren’t pulled
From their own schools
Really don’t bother
Locking doors
You are artists and places
Are waiting
Entire cafes empty without you
Bars ghostly, needing hard-drinking artists
It’s time for your Montevideo period
Get down to Uruguay
Perhaps it’s Paraguay, just go
Sao Paulo next
Caracas, Ciudad Bolivar
Then mostly it’s Paris
That’s where you’ll historically spend time
If you are much of a school at all
If I were these artists
I would eliminate
These middle periods
With their obscure works
And migrate to Paris en masse
Stand on these painted
Playground numbers
Soon as everyone is still, quiet
We’ll be gone
Don’t tell teacher