Snow lipstick for Miss Appelby

Snow has fallen
it dusts your lips
in sensual white frost
over your red lipstick
that melts as i kiss your mouth
i climb in to my 1964 school photo
holding it in my hand
caressing the gloss of faded faces
Ann Patrick what would you have been if you had not died of leukemia
Susan Russell pretty bugs bunny face girl dead now of cancer
Stuart Liggins kicking me
till my legs were black and bruised
and Sharpie always coming on top in team football
then all fresh faced and innocent
now they are all cracked n warped

I now have the eyes of a thousand mantras
the strike of a thousand cobras
sting of a thousand wasps
and yet i still
fondly remember you all
sitting on grass banks in summer sun
dreaming of futures
and poison
still to come
and to which we shall all sucumb
[p hall miss applebys class/who became the troutmask replica shaman in later life]

Miss Appleby
i loved you
for being my spinster teacher
who went on cruise ships to Australia
introduced me to Paul Robeson
and taught me life and decency
you who are now long dead and gone
48 years is an eternity to some
it is yesterday to me